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Imagine we have a set $S$ of $m$ elements and we wants to permutes the set elements. Thus the original position of each element should be unknown after permuting. If we define a permutation function as $\pi: \{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}^n$, then the set elements are permuted securely if $n\le|S|$ where $n$ is the security parameter. So to permute $S$ we do $\pi (i)=r_i$, where $i$ is the original index of an element in the set, and $r_i$ is its new index.

However, if the set size is small ($|S|< n$) it seems the only way to securely permute it is to pad it first and then permute it, that increases storage cost.

Question: Is there any better and more cost effective way of permuting a set than the above scheme?

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    $\begingroup$ I believe you need to rethink what security means in this context. It doesn't mean that the attacker can't take a guess at the permutation (and have a $1/|S|!$ chance of getting it correct). Instead, it's that the attacker doesn't get any additional information about the permutation. That is, even if $|S|=2$, the attacker knows that either the two elements remain where they are, or that they are swapped; but he doesn't know which it is. $\endgroup$ – poncho Jul 27 '15 at 17:59
  • $\begingroup$ @poncho Thank you for the answer. If we use a block cipher, as a permutation function, then given an input $i$ it outputs $r_i$ that is in the block ciphers range. Since the range of block cipher is usually large (e.g. 64-bit) $r_i$ can be any element in this range. Please correct me if I'm wrong. $\endgroup$ – user13676 Jul 27 '15 at 18:05
  • $\begingroup$ @poncho My question is: How do we permute a small sized set in practice? $\endgroup$ – user13676 Jul 27 '15 at 18:13
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    $\begingroup$ What's wrong with the Fisher–Yates shuffle, which is the archetypal way to randomly make a permutation of a set small enough that we can store the index of each element? Or/and (especially, for wider sets) enciphering the index using one of the many techniques of Format-Preserving Encryption and a fixed key? $\endgroup$ – fgrieu♦ Jul 27 '15 at 18:29
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If you can generate uniform random numbers, you can use a variant of Fisher-Yates.

//given an array s with the elements to be permuted
for i from n-1 to 1:
    t = rand(0, i) # inclusive
    swap(s[i], s[t])
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  • $\begingroup$ Can I ask you what the "secret key" is in this scheme? $\endgroup$ – user13676 Jul 27 '15 at 18:43
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    $\begingroup$ @user13676 The state of the random number generator. If you need it to be "keyed" so you can reproduce the permutation, then seed the random number generator. $\endgroup$ – mikeazo Jul 27 '15 at 18:47
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    $\begingroup$ In this pseudocode, t = rand(0, i) must generate a random integer uniformly distributed among the i+1 integers in range [0,i] inclusive; otherwise the permutation is distinguishable from random, especially for small sets. $\endgroup$ – fgrieu♦ Jul 27 '15 at 20:55
  • $\begingroup$ @fgrieu What can I use to get such property? $\endgroup$ – user13676 Jul 28 '15 at 12:15
  • $\begingroup$ @user13676 There are a lot of posts on this kind of stuff online. Most programming languages have methods to help with this. $\endgroup$ – mikeazo Jul 28 '15 at 12:19

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