Confusion and Diffusion are two properties of a secure cipher, identified by Claude Shannon. Confusion refers to making the relationship between the ciphertext and the symmetric key as complex and involved as possible. We try to achieve more confusion by creating a ciphertext of different length for a given plaintext when key is changed. As per our knowledge, all the existing symmetric encryption techniques will generate cipher text of same length for a given plaintext with different keys. The technique we are implementing here, will create ciphertext with different length for a given plaintext if we change the appropriate values in the key. This symmetric encryption technique will also possibly make the recovery of key very hard for the attacker.

Implementation aspects of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Contest finalist algorithms (MARS, RC6, RIJNDAEL, SERPENT and TWOFISH) are studied on TMS320C54X processor. The C codes written by Brian Gladman in 1999 are adapted to TMS320C54X and the speed and memory usage values are compared with the adaptation of Karol Gorski and Michal Skalski&rsquo / s implementation in 1999. The effects of implementation environment are investigated by comparing the two implementations. The sensitivities of the finalist algorithms to plaintext, key and key length variations together with the possible reasons are studied and scrutinized. Three of the algorithms, MARS, RC6 and RIJNDAEL, are implemented on the same platform by using the assembler language. The results show that assembler implementations are improved with respect to C implementations 13% for MARS, 16-20% for RIJNDAEL and 21-28% for RC6.

This thesis examines the new theatrical form of cyberformance (live performance by remote players using internet technologies) and contextualises it within the broader fields of networked performance, digital performance and theatre. Poststructuralist theories that contest the binary distinction between reality and representation provide the analytical foundation for the thesis. A critical reflexive methodological approach is undertaken in order to highlight three themes. First, the essential qualities and criteria of cyberformance are identified, and illustrated with examples from the early 1990s to the present day. Second, two cyberformance groups – the Plaintext Players and Avatar Body Collision – and UpStage, a purpose-built application for cyberformance, are examined in more detailed case studies. Third, the specifics of the cyberformance audience are explored and commonalities are identified between theatre and online culture. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that theatre and the internet have much to offer each other in this current global state of transition, and that cyberformance offers one means by which to facilitate the incorporation of new technologies into our lives.

To the field of cryptography, quantum mechanics is a game changer. The exploitation of quantum mechanical properties through the manipulation of quantum information, the information encoded in the state of quantum systems, would allow many protocols in use today to be broken as well as lead to the expansion of cryptography to new protocols. In this thesis, quantum encryption, i.e. encryption schemes for quantum data, is defined, along with several definitions of security, broadly divisible into semantic security and ciphertext indistinguishability, which are proven equivalent, in analogy to the foundational result by Goldwasser and Micali. Private- and public-key quantum encryption schemes are also constructed from quantum-secure cryptographic primitives, and their security is proven. Most of the results are in the joint paper Computational Security of Quantum Encryption, to appear in the 9th International Conference on Information Theoretic Security (ICITS2016).