We wrote a paper, in which we investigate the ability to predict the propagation of truncated differences and linear masks in cryptographic primitives. We speak of strong alignment if this propagation is predictable and of weak alignment if the propagation is hard to predict. We show the relevance of alignment with respect to some types of cryptanalysis including the rebound attack. We give insight on the alignment in Keccak by reporting on a number of experiments we conducted. It appears that the propagation of differences or linear masks does not respect the row boundaries, hence Keccak has weak alignment.

This paper can be downloaded here and was presented today at the ECRYPT II Hash Workshop 2011 in Tallinn, Estonia.