Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Latin Squares And Their Applications To Cryptography, Nathan O. Schmidt

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A latin square of order-n is an n x n array over a set of n symbols such that every symbol appears exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column. Latin squares encode features of algebraic structures. When an algebraic structure passes certain "latin square tests", it is a candidate for use in the construction of cryptographic systems. A transversal of a latin square is a list of n distinct symbols, one from each row and each column. The question regarding the existence of transversals in latin squares that encode the Cayley tables of finite groups …