Abstract
We investigate the implementation and application of the RC5 block cipher algorithm for digital images and provide testing, verification, and encryption efficiency of the RC5 block cipher for digital images. We describe briefly the basic design parameters of the RC5 block cipher and its implementation for digital images. A complete specification for the method of application of the RC5 block cipher to digital images is given. Several test images are used for inspecting the validity of the encryption and decryption algorithms. Also, we provide and introduce a mathematical measure for encryption efficiency, which we will call the encryption quality instead of visual inspection, and apply it to several images. The encryption quality of the RC5 block cipher algorithm is investigated along its several design parameters, such as word size, number of rounds, and secret key length, and the optimal choices for the best values of these design parameters are given.