README

Kuznyechik - Russian 128-bit Block Cipher
=========================================

There are many implementations of Kuznyechik cipher on the Internet.
We have tested most of these and compared their performance as well
as some other important attributes (SIMD optimization, readability,
etc.). With this knowledge having gained, we decided to implement
a new implementation combining two major attributes: maximal speed
and good readability.

This version is mostly based on Dr. Markku-Juhani O. Saarinen's code
that is available at:

    https://github.com/mjosaarinen/kuznechik

However, his implementation did not contain an optimized native 64-bit
version without SIMD optimizations. Since we wanted to have a portable
implementation that could be run even on CPUs without SSE instructions,
we needed to add it.

The native 64-bit version has been inspired by code used in VeraCrypt,
and originally written by "kerukuro":

    https://github.com/veracrypt/veracrypt


Optimization
------------
This code contains two distinct implementations at once. You can
determine what version will be used by defining `HAVE_SSE2` macro.
Both versions, however, are optimized by using large precomputed
lookup tables.

  - If the macro is not defined, a portable version working with 64-bit
    integers will be used.

  - In the case that your CPU supports SSE2 instructions, you can enable
    SSE2 optimization by defining the `HAVE_SSE2` macro. It increases
    performance dramatically.


Notes
-----
2018-11-15 - tested on virtual big-endian machine (powerpc in qemu).