usually secret information used as input to various kinds of cryptographic algorithms, like encryption, signature, MAC, to select the concrete transformation done by the algorithm.
6
votes
2answers
375 views
What's is the main difference between a key, an IV and a nonce?
What are the main differences between a nonce, a key and an IV. Without any doubt the key should be kept secret. But what about the nonce and the IV. What's the main difference between them and their ...
3
votes
1answer
206 views
Is quantum key distribution safe against MITM attacks too?
i read this recently: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12786-quantum-cryptography-to-protect-swiss-election.html
and some parts of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution
...
4
votes
1answer
463 views
How does GPG verify succesful decryption?
How does GPG (or other programs using the OpenPGP file format) verify that it has succeeded with decryption (for symmetrically encrypted data)?
Is something appended to the clear text so there exist ...
6
votes
2answers
387 views
Hash decrypts key, key decrypts cipher… why?
I noticed recently that a couple of pieces of encryption software (TrueCrypt being one of them) don't directly use a hash of the password as the key for the block cipher. Instead, they generate a ...
10
votes
5answers
640 views
Why does PBKDF2 xor the iterations of the hash function together?
The definition of PBKDF2 states that I obtain a derived key* by calling a pseudorandom function a bunch of times recursively:
...
4
votes
1answer
511 views
How does a key wrapping like RFC 3394 secure my cryptographic keys?
So I'm messing around in the BouncyCastle library with the RFC 3394 AES Key Wrap engine and I'm trying to understand the benefit of it.
The problem I'm running into is how to store keys securely on a ...
2
votes
1answer
62 views
Separate Read and Write Keys in TLS Key Material
Why does the TLS protocol use different symmetric keys for receiving and sending data?
Isn't it enough to have a single key used for both reading and writing?
0
votes
1answer
108 views
Scrypt as a KDF with one-time high-entropy input
I'm looking at using Scrypt as a KDF. Assume the following:
the input will always be high-entropy random bytes generated by a CSPRNG
the length of the input can vary from between 8 to 32 bytes
the ...
