analysing cryptographic algorithms, potentially uncovering weaknesses in them (e.g. "breaking" them or casting doubts on their actual security)

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How does one attack a two-time pad (i.e. one time pad with key reuse)?

My question might appear the same as the question Taking advantage of one-time pad key reuse?, but actually I did read all the answers and none of them helped me with the details I need. I am new to ...
16
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5answers
7k views

Taking advantage of one-time pad key reuse?

Suppose Alice wants to send encryptions (under a one-time pad) of $m_1$ and $m_2$ to Bob over a public channel. Alice and Bob have a shared key $k$; however, both messages are the same length as the ...
6
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2answers
1k views

Definition of Textbook RSA

What is the definition of Textbook RSA? What are some of the properties of textbook RSA? How does it differ from other RSAs?
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3answers
540 views

How practical are side-channel attacks and how much of a concern are they?

I see a lot of research in very sophisticated side-channel attacks on crypto systems. Most (but definitely not all) seem to follow a trend, namely, the crypto system does something very dumb like ...
13
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1answer
386 views

Is this password migration strategy secure?

I want to upgrade the security of some existing databases of users' authentication tokens strictly for the purpose of making sure that if the database is stolen, attackers will not be able to guess ...
13
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2answers
2k views

Why does nobody use (or break) the Camellia Cipher?

If Camellia is of equivalent security and speed to AES, concerns arise. First of all, assuming the above, why is Camellia so rarely used in practice? Why aren't there any breaks in Camellia? Does ...
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2answers
2k views

Rijndael vs. Serpent vs. Twofish: General comparison

Can anyone explain (or give a link to document about) why Rijndaal won the AES, especially comparing it to other finalists (Serpent and Twofish)? What criteria were used to make decision? Or is there ...
13
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4answers
545 views

Is Wiener's attack on RSA extendable to larger keys with low hamming weight?

Using small private exponents with RSA improves performance. However, it has been shown (Wiener, 1990) that if $\log d \leq \frac14 \log N$, the private exponent $d$ can be reconstructed from the ...
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2answers
1k views

Predicting values from a Linear Congruential Generator

I have learnt that Linear Congruential Random Number Generators are not cryptographically secure - my understanding is that given an LCG of the form: ...
8
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3answers
455 views

Can I use a one time pad key twice with random plaintext?

I understand the basics of OTP: $|\text{key space}| = |\text{plaintext space}|$ implies perfect security, key reuse destroys this. Cryptanalysis on the $N$-Time Pad for $N > 1$ involves finding ...
4
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1answer
405 views

Linear Cryptanalysis

What is the principle of linear cryptanalysis, as applied to a block cipher ? For instance, this page gives the rough outline of differential cryptanalysis.
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2answers
701 views

How can I do a brute force (ciphertext only) attack on an CBC-encrypted message?

Given a CBC ciphertext and IV, how can I find the encryption key? We are limited with an 8 chars key, each char in the range of [a..h], so I can generate every possible key (these are only $8^8 = ...
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1answer
316 views

Cryptanalysing Affine cipher

I am trying to cryptanalyse a cipher–text encrypted by Affine cipher. The encryption formula is: $c = f(x) = (ax+b)\bmod m$, where $a$ and $b$ are unknown constants; $x$ is a plain-text symbol, and ...
20
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2answers
955 views

How do I apply differential cryptanalysis to a block cipher?

I've read a lot of summaries of block ciphers particularly with regards to the NIST competitions stating that reduced-round block ciphers are, for example, vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis. I ...
13
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2answers
958 views

How can we reason about the cryptographic capabilities of code-breaking agencies like the NSA or GCHQ?

I have read in Applied Cryptography that the NSA is the largest hardware buyer and the largest mathematician employer in the world. How can we reason about the symmetric ciphers cryptanalysis ...
7
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1answer
3k views

How does the index of coincidence work in the Kasiki test?

I'm starting to learn about cryptanalysis and I am having a bit of difficulty understanding the Kasiski test's index of coincidence. I have a book (Cryptography Theory And Practice by Douglas Stinson) ...
10
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8answers
848 views

RSA with small exponents?

Just to establish notation with respect to the RSA protocol, let $n = pq$ be the product of two large primes and let $e$ and $d$ be the public and private exponents, respectively ($e$ is the inverse ...
8
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1answer
556 views

Duration for attacking Two-Key Triple-DES Encryption using all RAM ever built?

I am considering attacks on Two-Key Triple-DES Encryption assuming $2^{32}$ known plaintext/ciphertext pairs (that's a mere 32 Giga Bytes of ciphertext) by the method devised by Paul C. van Oorschot ...
6
votes
3answers
159 views

Number of intersections of two sets

Suppose both I and my friend have a set of integer numbers. We want to know the number of common elements in our two sets but without knowing elements of the sets of each other. So I don't want my ...
5
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1answer
258 views

If the PSK is known, is it possible to decrypt traffic from other clients in a WPA2 wlan network?

If in a public WLAN WPA2-PSK is used, but the PSK is more or less publicly available, does this mean that an attacker with that PSK can easily decrypt wlan traffic from/to other clients of that WLAN? ...
5
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4answers
172 views

Changing algorithms during encryption

Inspired by "Guarding against cryptanalytic breakthroughs: combining multiple hash functions", I am curious if there is a cryptographic reason to use only one algorithm during encryption. For ...
4
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1answer
545 views

Example of CHI Square test on Caesar Cipher?

I am trying to get my head round the chi square test, when used with the Caesar cipher. I started off using this formula, $$ X = \sum_{i = 1}^k \frac{f_i · f'_i}{n · n'} $$ Where ...
3
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2answers
835 views

Brute forcing CRC-32

I'm working on a cryptosystem which uses IDEA. The designer made the mistake of including a CRC-32B hash of the password unencrypted in the header, so that the system can quickly reject bad ...
10
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4answers
474 views

About Cryptography in a Character Language

Suppose I had a message in Chinese (or another non-phonetic language) and I wanted to encipher it. Some of the simplest encryptions in English are substitution ciphers, but such ciphers don't seem ...
8
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2answers
760 views

Can two different pairs of RSA key have the same modulus?

Can $n=pq$ be part of two different pairs of RSA keys? If such keys exist, say $(e_1,n)$ and $(e_2,n)$, how are they related? What will be the security concerns for the two users?
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4answers
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What is the effect of the different AES key lengths?

How does a changing key length affects the ciphertext, not only in case of AES, but in general? I know that the key spaces become much larger and the number of rounds in case of AES changes, but is ...
6
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2answers
236 views

Attacks of the MAC construction $\mathcal{H}(m||k)$ for common hashes $\mathcal{H}$?

Consider a common practically-collision-resistant Merkle–Damgård hash function $\mathcal{H}$ (e.g. SHA-1, RIPEMD-160, SHA-256, SHA-512). We define a Message Authentication Code $\mathcal{C}$ $$(k,m) ...
6
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1answer
300 views

Exposing RSA private-key data… bad?

We know that exposing $p$, or $q$ or $\phi(n)$ results in trivial attacks on RSA since they allow us to factor $n$ and to compute the private exponent $d$. In OpenSSL (and most RSA implementations) ...
3
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3answers
590 views

A simple block cipher based on the SHA-256 hash function

I've come up with this little routine for doing encryption using the SHA-2 (in this case SHA-256) hash function. As such it is a block cipher with a 256 bit (32 byte) block size and an arbitrary key ...
2
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2answers
245 views

Can I build a secure tweakable block cipher from a normal one by adding key and tweak?

Let (E,D) be a secure block cipher. Consider the following tweakable block cipher: ...
2
votes
2answers
293 views

How to get the keyword from a keyword cipher?

I was given a ciphertext and now I am trying to break it via looking for the keyword. This is a keyword cipher. So: PlainEnglish: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ If ...
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vote
2answers
116 views

Help me describe/identify this challenge-response protocol/algorithm?

My area of expertise is reverse engineering, specifically embedded systems. I do attack cryptographic systems, but this largely involves key recovery or exploiting the implementation. I was asked to ...
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0answers
76 views

Two untrusted party want to exchange data: how to ensure each one gets the data it needs? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Two untrusted party want to exchange data: how to insure each one gets the data it needs? I am trying to come up with what could maybe be a novel algorithm for an ...
0
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1answer
156 views

What is the probability of breaking the AES algorithm?

I am doing a project which requires the encryption to be done using AES. Is it really possible (technically) to crack AES? If yes, please tell me: What is the probability of breaking AES? How ...
0
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2answers
133 views

CPA distinguisher for matrix multiplication in GF(256) with randomized padding

What is the best CPA distinguisher for the function $F_k:\{0,1\}^{8n}\to\{0,1\}^{16n}$ described below? Let $E_k$ be a $2n\times2n$ matrix with elements in $GF(2^8)$, selected by generating bit ...
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1answer
98 views

My Hand Cipher, Can some one tell if it secure [closed]

In easy steps how it works, Convert txt to numbers . mod 1-26. Generate random numbers (By my other cipher) equal to plain txt. Write random numbers under txt numbers. txt= LOI - txt number= 12 15 ...