Methods, apparatus and media for performing polynomial arithmetic operations over a Galois field having characteristic 2 and size 1 are disclosed. Such methods, apparatus and media include generating a binary representation of a polynomial over a Galois field having characteristic 2 and size 1, generating a plurality of right shifted binary representations of the first polynomial, and generating a binary representation of the polynomial reciprocal based upon a bitwise exclusive-OR of the binary representation of the polynomial and one or more right shifted binary representations selected from the plurality of right shifted binary representations.