Convoluted Interleaved Non-Restricted Algorithms

Convoluted Interleaved Non-Restricted Algorithms (CINA) is a free and open-source quantum encryption cipher-suite developed by InterTeck, based on an early version of the Rainstorm Access Control (RAC) patent that expired. Unlike RAC, CINA is just an algorithm, instead of an algorithm combined with a full access control system, both for simplicity and to circumvent licensing restrictions. It is designed in such a way that it can be interleaved with standard conventional cryptography if desired, mitigating the perceived risk of quantum-based attacks. Its release has been disavowed by Raven, the licensor of RAC, as well as several world governments, by being perceived as threatening the security of the current classified RAC algorithms, even though those algorithms contain several functional differences to CINA.

CINA includes a number of algorithms that are designed to provide the highest level of protection that is possible to run depending on hardware specifications. These include CINA-I (Low), CINA-II (Medium), and CINA-III (High). Unlike RAC, CINA has no requirement for specific hardware, and is capable of running on all consumer QPUs, even those lacking the export-restricted acceleration instructions that would otherwise be required for running RAC.

History

Before CINA, privacy-conscious members of the general public were usually restricted to conventional encryption algorithms, due to the closed-source nature of both RAC and its hardware. This, too, later became a problem, as it became clear that it was possible to break even conventional algorithms that were declared "quantum-resistant" given enough resources. RAC-I or RAC-II modules available to purchase were bulky, expensive, power-hungry, and were often impossible to obtain as a consumer without a special license. When InterTeck released CINA and successfully miniaturised the hardware, it saw massive popularity in integration into PDAs, finally making quantum encryption accessible worldwide.