STREAMING ALIGNMENT OF KEY STREAM TO UNALIGNED DATA STREAM

Enhanced cryptographic techniques are provided which facilitate higher data rates in a wireless communication system. In one aspect, improvements to the ZUC algorithm are disclosed which can reduce the number of logical operations involved key stream generation, reduce computational burden on a mobile device implementing ZUC, and extend battery life. The disclosed techniques include, for instance, receiving, at a wireless communication apparatus, a data stream having data packets for ciphering or deciphering. The wireless apparatus can generate a cipher key for the cryptographic function, determine a starting address of a first data packet in the data stream and shift the cipher key to align with the starting address of the first data packet. Once aligned, the processing apparatus applies the cryptographic function to a first block of the first data packet using the shifted cipher key and manages a remaining portion of the cipher key to handle arbitrarily aligned data across multiple packets