Chaos-based joint compression and encryption algorithm for generating variable length ciphertext

Here we modify a chaos-based joint compression and encryption algorithm previously proposed by us. Two modifications are suggested for improving the compression performance and generating ciphertext with variable length, respectively. The first goal is achieved by counting the number of distinct symbols visited by the chaotic search orbit, rather than the total number of iterations of the chaotic map. The second objective is realized by introducing a user-chosen parameter to determine the ratio between the search and the mask modes. The performance of the modified algorithm is justified by simulation results using standard test files.