Xoriert

Xoriert is a term used in computing to describe data, signals, or strings that have been transformed by applying an exclusive OR (XOR) operation with a key or mask. Formally, if D is the original data and K is a bitwise key of the same length, the xoriert result is D' = D ⊕ K. The operation is reversible: applying XOR with the same key again yields the original data. XOR is commutative and associative, and XORing with 0 leaves data unchanged; XORing a value with itself yields zero. These properties make xoriert transformations simple and fast to implement in software and hardware.

In cryptographic contexts, XORing with a random key is equivalent to a one-time pad and can provide perfect secrecy when the key is as long as the data and never reused. In practical applications, however, short or reused keys degrade security, enabling known-plaintext or keystream-recovery attacks. XOR-based schemes are also widely used for lightweight obfuscation, error detection, and as a building block in stream ciphers, where a keystream is XORed with plaintext to produce ciphertext. It is important to note that XOR alone does not provide authentication or integrity guarantees.

Etymology and usage: The form xoriert derives from the English acronym XOR and the German suffix -iert, and is sometimes used in German-language technical writing to describe data that has been XORed. In English texts, "XORed" is more common, but xoriert may appear in informal or bilingual documentation.

Related concepts include the XOR operation, one-time pad, stream cipher, parity, and various data integrity schemes that use XOR as a primitive.