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13

Contrary to what Stephen says, you absolutely can compute the tag in parallel. Here's how it works; the tag computation is essentially "assemble the AAD, data, the length field and $Encr(Nonce)$ into a series of values $x_n, x_{n-1}, x_{n-2}, ..., x_0$", and then "compute the polynomial $x_nh^n + x_{n-1}h^{n-1} + x_{n-2}h^{n-2} + ... + x_0h^0$ This ...

5

The GCM flowchart on Wikipedia and my intuition support the notion that some of the GCM work can be done in parallel. At the very least you can do each $E_k(ctr)$ operation in parallel, but it doesn't look like you should be able to parallelize the authentication, as each $mult_H$ requires the output of a previous call as its input. Edit: poncho explains why ...

3

Your mode is essentially equivalent to CFB mode, except that: you've reversed the order of the blocks in the message, and you're using the block cipher in the opposite direction than usual. Neither of those differences should have any direct security implications (since all standard block ciphers have the same security properties in both directions), ...

4

What is this method/algorithm/construction called? Dunno; this is a new one on me. Is it as secure as CBC implemented the normal way? Should be. Modeled as an abstract 'take plaintext, output ciphertext' model, this method (with a random last ciphertext bits) has precisely the same ciphertext output distribution as CBC mode (with a random IV), ...

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