# All Questions

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### Is there an oblivious decryption scheme?

Alice has $K$; Bob has $E(K, m)$; Is there such a scheme that enables Alice decrypts $E(K, m)$ without knowing $m$, and Bob gets $m$ ?
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### Lightweight Asymmetric encryption algorithm

I'm an embedded systems researcher, and new in the crypto field. Actually, I need to know if there are any lightweight asymmetric encryption algorithm especially considering the time needed for key ...
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### Is Encrypt+HMAC stronger than AEAD?

There are a few posts that I've come across that seem to infer that using regular encryption and a MAC might be better than using the newer AEAD (ie: AES/GCM) modes. http://www.daemonology.net/blog/...
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### AES - What is the advantage of a 256-bit key with a 128-bit block cipher? [duplicate]

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the decision to select the 128-bit Rijndael as the AES cipher, even with 192-bit and 256-bit keys. Even with a 256-bit key, you only get 2^128 possible outputs ...
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### Are AES-256's related-key weaknesses exploitable if it is used to build a hash?

Assume it is made a hash based on AES-256 encryption (perhaps because this is hardware-accelerated, but no standard hash is); and it is used the Merkle–Damgård structure, that is padding of the ...
1k 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 ...
259 views

### Logjam on Elliptic Curves?

I think we're all aware of the Logjam attack. From now on we know that re-using primes for DH is a bad idea. But we also say that elliptic curves are safe from the attack (relying on the NFS), ...
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### What is the use of REAL random number generators in cryptography?

I understand the use of pseudo-random number generators. I am not getting mixed up between these and "real" random number generators. However, I don't understand for what a real random number ...
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### Do I have to have a different salt for each password?

Should I use a different salt for each password? In my system, there are no user names, only passwords. When a user logins in, he types in one or more passwords and the server compares the results ...
586 views

### How to choose constants in a cryptographic function?

A number of cryptographic functions have constants built in. For example, the constants used in RFC 2104 for HMAC, or the constants used in s-boxes (e.g., DES and AES), or MD5. In general, how are ...
386 views

### Tactics available to help prove security of a new system?

I believe that the accepted tactic to "prove" a system as secure is to allow the crypto-community to review it and if no vulnerabilities are found over a long period of time (5 or 6 years), then a new ...
611 views

### How to calculate elliptic curve parameters?

I'm having a rough time understanding the math behind elliptic curves. I want to implement ECDH where user can define a, b, and p parameters of elliptic curve. How can I calculate generator base ...
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### Is AES-256 a post-quantum secure cipher or not?

We know Grover's algorithm speedup brute-force attacks two time faster in block ciphers (e.g brute-forcing 128 bit keys take $2^{64}$ operations not $2^{128}$). That explains why we are using 256 bit ...
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### Can Skein be used as a secure MAC in format H(k || m)?

Can Skein be used as a secure MAC in format H(k || m)? I understand it can work with HMAC, but it is fine as a one-pass MAC in the format above and resists length extension attacks. Is this ...
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### Is there an intuitive explanation as to why only the private key can decrypt a message encrypted with the public key?

I have just learned about using PGP/GPG for email encryption and one thing has always bugged me: How is it possible that a message encrypted with somebody's public key can be decrypted only with that ...
2k views

### How exactly was the finalist chosen in the NIST AES competition?

I was just reading the Stick Figure Guide to AES and came across an interesting table explaining how the winner was chosen: Unfortunately the NIST site is down so I can't gain further information ...
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### Can I select a large random prime using this procedure?

Say I want a random 1024-bit prime $p$. The obviously-correct way to do this is select a random 1024-bit number and test its primality with the usual well-known tests. But suppose instead that I do ...
477 views

### Definition of “pepper” in hash functions

I am confused about the notion of "pepper" in the context of storing hashes of users' passwords. Definition 1: A pepper is a secret key Looking around the Internet, for example here or here, a ...
660 views

### Why are the initial states of hashes functions (like SHA-1) often non-zero?

There is already a question asking "Why initialize SHA1 with specific buffer?" and my question follows on from this: Why are the initial states of hash functions often non-zero? For most, I have ...
1k views

### Can AES decryption be used as encryption?

Definition E: AES encryption D: AES decryption x: plain text y: encrypted text k: key In original AES cipher, encryption: y = E(x, k) decryption: x = D(y, k) Then I define the "reverse AES ...
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### How broken is a xor of two LCGs?

Suppose we define a PRG as the xor of two LCGs modulo a 64-bit prime: something like the following Python code. ...
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### Is it possible to distinguish a securely-encrypted ciphertext from random noise?

Say I have a bunch of data encrypted with a secure block cipher (such as AES). An attacker has unlimited access to this encrypted data. The attacker doesn't know whether the data is encrypted or if it'...
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### What is the PRG period of stream ciphers such as RC4 or Salsa20?

I am confused about how long a stream cipher can be used before you should change the key. To be concrete, let me use the stream cipher based on RC4 as an example. Let's say I want to encrypt a very ...
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### 128 bit 3DES Key and AES Key: what's the difference?

Apologies if this is really basic but I couldn't find the answer to this. I have heard some Info Sec colleagues talking about creating an AES key in preference to a DES or 3DES key but I don't know ...
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### Is it possible to get an RSA encryption key by comparing the unencrypted and encrypted file?

Exactly what the title says. If I have a RSA encrypted file, and the exact same file but decrypted, can I tell the key that was used from that information?
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### Necessity for finite field arithmetic and the prime number p in Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme

Shamir's original paper (PDF, 197kb) describing a threshold secret sharing scheme states: To make this claim more precise, we use modular arithmetic instead of real arithmetic. The set of ...
1k views

### Is MD5 second-preimage resistant when used only on FIXED length messages?

I fully realize that MD5 should not be used in any new project, but in my particular situation I have severe CPU performance issues, so MD5 is convenient. I have read a lot about MD5 security for this ...
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### Knowing pre-encryption data, can we find the private key CryptoLocker used?

One of our users seems to have been hit by CryptoLocker. As a result, he has a hard drive full of encrypted files. The ransom-ware claims to have used public key encryption on the files. If we know ...
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### Associative standard cryptographic hash function

I am looking for a standard hash function which satisfies the following property: A hash function $H(a,b) = F(h(a),h(b))$ with $h$ (within $F$) any standard cryptographic hash function and $F$ an ...
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### Why are cryptography algorithms not exported to certain countries?

There have been strict laws about the export of crypto software to certain countries. I can understand the intent, but never gauged the fact that there is nothing stopping these countries from ...
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### CBC key lifetime, or, “how big is too big?”

IPSec recommends rekeying SA's figuring in both time and amount of data sent. Even when using AES-256 in CBC mode, the key and IV commonly get re-negotiated after 100MB. My case isn't using IPSec, ...
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### 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 ...
3k views

### What is the importance of Modular arithmetic in cryptography?

Why do we use modular arithmetic so often in Cryptography?
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### What is the difference between a HMAC and a hash of data?

On a recent question it became apparent that there's a significant difference between an HMAC of input data and a hash of input data. What exactly is the difference between an HMAC and a hash of a ...
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### Block cipher and parity of permutation

Can anyone explain the following text passage to me? Most real-world block ciphers build even permutations, because it's hard to build odd ones using small operations (32 bit) on larger (128 ...
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### Are cryptographic hash functions perfect hash functions?

For a cryptographic hash function and input values of shorter length than the hash function output, it's pretty obvious that there should be as few collisions as possible. But are there guaranteed to ...
2k views

### Understanding CRC [closed]

There are zillions of articles describing CRC. What can I read to (more deeply) understand what's really going on? Both from an algebraic perspective and a bit-manipulation perspective, I'd like to ...
3k views

### Using a Hash as a secure PRNG

I was just looking at some NIST PRNG recommendations, specifically at Hash_DRBG. I read briefly through the algorithm, and even though it is not overly complex, it still seems unnecessary to me. I ...
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### Why does CTR mode XOR the plaintext into the output of the block cipher rather than XORing the plaintext into the input of the block cipher?

As I understand it, CTR mode essentially turns a block cipher into a stream cipher like so: ...
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### Is it safe to reuse ECDH asymmetric keys for authentication?

Alice, Bob, and Carol each generate ECDH keypairs. Alice and Bob establish a communication channel and negotiate an AliceBob secret. The question is: Is it safe for Alice and/or Bob to reuse their ...
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### How long does it take a quantum computer to brute force AES?

I understand that using Grover's algorithm it only requires $2^{64}$ lookups for a 128 bit AES encryption, leading people to say we need to increase to 256 bit keys. But how long would it actually ...
Hi I have a problem with moving my blind signature implementation from educational (textbook RSA) to more practical (padded RSA) side. David Chaums paper gives a following figure: $r$ - blinding ...