XTEA

This standard C source code, adapted from the reference code released into the public domain by David Wheeler and Roger Needham, encrypts and decrypts using XTEA:

#include <stdint.h>

/* take 64 bits of data in v[0] and v[1] and 128 bits of key[0] - key[3] */

void encipher(unsigned int num_rounds, uint32_t v[2], uint32_t const key[4]) {
    unsigned int i;
    uint32_t v0=v[0], v1=v[1], sum=0, delta=0x9E3779B9;
    for (i=0; i < num_rounds; i++) {
        v0 += (((v1 << 4) ^ (v1 >> 5)) + v1) ^ (sum + key[sum & 3]);
        sum += delta;
        v1 += (((v0 << 4) ^ (v0 >> 5)) + v0) ^ (sum + key[(sum>>11) & 3]);
    }
    v[0]=v0; v[1]=v1;
}

void decipher(unsigned int num_rounds, uint32_t v[2], uint32_t const key[4]) {
    unsigned int i;
    uint32_t v0=v[0], v1=v[1], delta=0x9E3779B9, sum=delta*num_rounds;
    for (i=0; i < num_rounds; i++) {
        v1 -= (((v0 << 4) ^ (v0 >> 5)) + v0) ^ (sum + key[(sum>>11) & 3]);
        sum -= delta;
        v0 -= (((v1 << 4) ^ (v1 >> 5)) + v1) ^ (sum + key[sum & 3]);
    }
    v[0]=v0; v[1]=v1;
}

The changes from the reference source code are minor:

• The reference source code used the unsigned long type rather than the 64-bit clean uint32_t.
• The reference source code did not use const types.
• The reference source code omitted redundant parentheses, using C precedence to write the round function as e.g. v1 += (v0<<4 ^ v0>>5) + v0 ^ sum + k[sum>>11 & 3];

The recommended value for the "num_rounds" parameter is 32, not 64, as each iteration of the loop does two Feistel-cipher rounds. To additionally improve speed, the loop can be unrolled by pre-computing the values of sum+key[].

In 2004, Ko et al. presented a related-key differential attack on 27 out of 64 rounds of XTEA, requiring 2^20.5 chosen plaintexts and a time complexity of 2^115.15.^[2][3]

In 2009, Lu presented a related-key rectangle attack on 36 rounds of XTEA, breaking more rounds than any previously published cryptanalytic results for XTEA. The paper presents two attacks, one without and with a weak key assumption, which corresponds to 2^64.98 bytes of data and 2^126.44 operations, and 2^63.83 bytes of data and 2^104.33 operations respectively.^[4]

Presented along with XTEA was a variable-width block cipher termed Block TEA, which uses the XTEA round function, but Block TEA applies it cyclically across an entire message for several iterations. Because it operates on the entire message, Block TEA has the property that it does not need a mode of operation. An attack on the full Block TEA was described by Saarinen,^[5] which also details a weakness in Block TEA's successor, XXTEA.

• Ascon — A NIST-select lightweight authenticated cipher.
• RC4 — A stream cipher that, just like XTEA, is designed to be very simple to implement.
• TEA — Block TEA's precursor.
• XXTEA — Block TEA's successor.

• Sekar, Gautham; Mouha, Nicky; Velichkov, Vesselin; Preneel, Bart (2011). "Meet-in-the-Middle Attacks on Reduced-Round XTEA". In Kiayias, A. (ed.). Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 6558. pp. 250–267. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-19074-2_17. ISBN 978-3-642-19073-5. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
• Moon, Dukjae; Hwang, Kyungdeok; Lee, Wonil; Lee, Sangjin; Lim, Jongin (2002). "Impossible Differential Cryptanalysis of Reduced Round XTEA and TEA". Fast Software Encryption. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 2365. pp. 49–60. doi:10.1007/3-540-45661-9_4. ISBN 978-3-540-44009-3. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
• Andem, Vikram Reddy (2003). A cryptanalysis of the Tiny Encryption Algorithm (PDF) (Masters thesis). The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Retrieved October 10, 2018.

• DataFlow Diagram
• A web page advocating TEA and XTEA and providing a variety of implementations
• Test vectors for TEA and XTEA
• A Cryptanalysis of the Tiny Encryption Algorithm
• A C implementation of XTEA Archived February 24, 2023, at the Wayback Machine
• PHP implementation of XTEA
• Pascal/Delphi implementation of XTEA Archived October 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
• Java implementation of XTEA (32 rounds)
• JavaScript implementation of XTEA (32 rounds)
• Python implementation of XTEA
• Linden Scripting Language (LSL) implementation of XTEA for Second Life scripting
• Verilog implementation of XTEA
• Smalltalk implementation of XTEA Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
• PostgreSQL implementation of XTEA