Cryptography
Salsa20
Definition
A 256-bit-key stream cipher designed by Daniel J. Bernstein in 2005, selected by the eSTREAM portfolio and the direct ancestor of ChaCha20.
Examples
- NaCl/libsodium's secretbox uses XSalsa20-Poly1305 as its default AEAD.
- Salsa20/12 was a final-portfolio entry of the eSTREAM competition.
Related terms
ChaCha20
A modern stream cipher designed by Daniel J. Bernstein, using a 256-bit key and 96-bit nonce, widely deployed alongside Poly1305 as the AEAD ChaCha20-Poly1305.
Stream Cipher
A symmetric cipher that encrypts data one bit or byte at a time by XORing it with a pseudorandom keystream derived from a key and nonce.
Symmetric Encryption
An encryption scheme in which the same secret key is used for both encryption and decryption, offering high speed and strong confidentiality when the key is shared securely.
Encryption
The cryptographic transformation of plaintext into ciphertext using an algorithm and key so that only authorized parties can recover the original data.
Cipher Suite
A named combination of cryptographic algorithms — key exchange, authentication, bulk encryption, and integrity — negotiated by protocols such as TLS for a given session.
Nonce
A "number used once" supplied to a cryptographic algorithm to guarantee freshness and prevent replay or key/IV reuse.