In cryptography, a weak key is a key, which, used with a specific cipher, makes the cipher behave in some undesirable way. Weak keys usually represent a very small fraction of the overall keyspace, which usually means that, if one generates a random key to encrypt a message, weak keys are very unlikely to give rise to a security problem. Nevertheless, it is considered desirable for a cipher to have no weak keys. A cipher with no weak keys is said to have a flat, or linear, key space.
Read more about Weak Key: Historical Origins, Weak Keys in DES, List of Algorithms With Weak Keys, No Weak Keys As A Design Goal
Famous quotes containing the words weak and/or key:
“Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave the key in the lock are fools.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)