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I just wrote in the crypto stackexchange group something like:

This is a cipher with 18-byte block and 2-rounds structure.

This seems inconsistent to my own eyes/ears of non-native English speaker. I vaguely justify it because byte is a unit (and on top of that sub-divisible), and round a non-divisible countable thing.

What's the appropriate rule?

fgrieu
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    I don't understand the example itself, but I can tell you that *something on the tune of* isn't remotely idiomatic. If that doesn't bother you, it hardly seems worth thinking about how best to express mathematical concepts in natural language that's not designed for such contexts. Note for attributive adjectival constructions involving count / quantity numbers, such as *a four-cylinder engine,* we nearly always use the singular, so yours should probably be *a 2-round structure.* You seems to be mixing the two pluralities with *block* and *rounds*. – FumbleFingers Mar 06 '24 at 12:31
  • @FumbleFingers: you are right, thanks for pointing it, and yes my mistake bothers me, so I fixed it! At least I learned the proper form of to the tune of, and when it should be used. The end of your comment looks like an answer. – fgrieu Mar 06 '24 at 12:56
  • What you had before was a mash-up of two different metaphoric usages. [Something being subsidized] to the tune of* [an amount]* and [something identified as being] on / along the lines of* [a description]*. – FumbleFingers Mar 06 '24 at 13:04
  • @FumbleFingers: yes it was. Thanks for along the lines of, which indeed was what I was trying to use. – fgrieu Mar 06 '24 at 13:07
  • I just got Google Gemini to tell me that When a cipher is described as having "a 2-round structure," it refers to the number of iterations of the main encryption algorithm used to scramble the data. Each iteration is often called a round. I must say that *18-byte block and 2-round* looks like a really awkward "attributive adjective" to put before the relevant noun *structure* - but if that's how people in the business refer to such things, I won't argue. – FumbleFingers Mar 06 '24 at 13:11
  • ...maybe the problem is you're trying to shoehorn both "qualifiers" (blocksize and iteration count) into a single element modifying *structure. Consider rephrasing to something like This a cipher has 18-byte blocks and a 2-round encryption algorithm, and lose the word structure*. – FumbleFingers Mar 06 '24 at 13:18
  • The best rule is to copy experts. There are general rules, but there are occasional exceptions. You're better asking about terminology in the crypto SE forum than here (where people may try and Google but are less likely to be familiar with the topic), because of those exceptions. – Stuart F Mar 06 '24 at 17:02

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