# All Questions

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### Why are the constants so simple in Keccak?

Keccak, the construction selected for SHA-3 is very interesting. It seems unlike other primitives and has chosen very simple constants. (Keccak talk PDF) The initial values of the state in Keccak is ...
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### Fastest multiplication algorithm for efficient exponentiation in C++?

First I apologize if this question is better tailored for SO, but since I'm using the method for crypto stuff, I thought I'd ask anybody that might know here. Karatsuba algorithm does a pretty good ...
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### How hard is a known prefix hash preimage attack?

Suppose the attacker knows $X, Z$ such that $H(X || Y) = Z$ If bit-length(Y) < 60 then a brute force attack is possible. What if ...
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### Is the following key stretching algorithm as memory hard as I think it is?

I'm having some fun designing a key stretching algorithm that can be implemented in pure Python. It's built entirely out of the standard library's hash functions in an attempt to at least wrest some ...
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### Why nobody considers counter re-keying as a standard Block Cipher Mode?

One of the simplest possible cipher modes is setting each successive key as a function F of the previous one. ...
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### Algorithm/Technique for Steganography [closed]

What is the most used Algorithm/Technique in Steganography? I made some research about the algorithm/technique and I think Least Significat Bit(LSB) is the most used algorithm, is there any more ...
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### Digital signatures in SSL/TLS-like protocols

The TLS protocol includes an optional Server Key Exchange message that is signed by the server. It seems to me that this message is digitally signed only to prove to the client that the message ...
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### Security of pairing-based cryptography over binary fields regarding new attacks

In the last week, the discrete logarithm problem was broken for the binary fields $\mathbb{F}_{2^{(14 \times 127)}}$ and $\mathbb{F}_{2^{(27 \times 73)}}$. Pairing-based cryptography using binary ...
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### Symmetric encryption mode where ciphertext size is plain text size

I've had many questions on Stackoverflow on how to minimize the output of a cipher - during encryption of course - to the same size as the input. Obviously this is possible for a single block of ...
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### Can I find two specific words with the same md5 hash?

I want to find two strings containing special words like "yes" or "no", mixed with random characters, for which the MD5 hash is equal. An example of what I'm looking for: ...
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### Is Guillou-Quisquater existentially unforgeable against adaptive message attack under a random oracle model?

First of all, the Guillou-Quisquater digital signature scheme is: Note everything is $\bmod n$. Message is denoted by $m$. Private key: $s$ Public key: Hash function $H$, $e$, ...
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### Computational indistinguishability and example of non polynomial algorithm

The wikipedia page on computational indistinguishability says that two ensembles are not distinguishable if "any non-uniform probabilistic polynomial time algorithm A" cannot tell them apart. To help ...
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### Why do we assume un-security of communication channel on every cryptography system

While reading about a few cryptographic systems, I noticed that we always assume the communication channel is not secured. Why is this assumption made? And, why the effort is being put into designing ...
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### Validating successful decryption in AES

I have a program which uses AES-256 in CBC mode to encrypt and decrypt files. As I have quickly realized, AES will even use an incorrect passphrase to decrypt data, which leaves me with no way to ...
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### From hash to Cryptographic hash

After reading some excellent papers on SipHash, I understood that good non-cryptographic hashes such as MurmurHash and CityHash are not secure for MAC usage, due to a certain type of DDos attack ...
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### Why are RSA keys encoded with ASN.1 for TLS?

Browser vendors use ASN.1 encoding for RSA certificates in the TLS protocol. RSA public keys are just a number, so why do we need encode them to something else? That increases the risk of security ...
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### Is there a way to analyse xxHash and tell, either by human analysis, or with an automated tool, that this hash function is or is not cryptographic? [duplicate]

After reading some excellent papers on SipHash, I understood that good non-cryptographic hashes such as MurmurHash and CityHash are not secure for Internet usage, due to a certain type of DDos attack ...
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### Is storing original file size in an encrypted file header a bad idea?

I'm encrypting a file using AES-256 in CBC mode. I'm padding to the 16-byte input multiple by using the PKCS#7 limit. The problem I'm currently having is that if I'm transferring or reading the ...
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### Implementing PKCS#7 Padding on a Stream of Unknown Length?

I have a fairly simple Python program using PyCrypto to use AES+CBC to encrypt a stream of input. In order to adhere to the 16-byte input size multiple, I've implemented PKCS#7 by hand. (While I know ...
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### RSA Certificate Owner and Issuer line meanings?

Apologies if this question is not in the right place. I've recently been looking through some RSA certificates ( specifically, Android apk .rsa files) and I'm having trouble deciphering the one and ...
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### Why is Blum-Goldwasser not IND-CCA-2 secure?

Consider the Blum-Goldwasser encryption scheme as described on Wikipedia. I was told that it was not IND-CCA-2 secure. I heard there was malleabilty, probably it has to do with XOR-ing. But I do not ...
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### Could use an explanation of the notation for an oracle adversary

In the definition below, what exactly does it mean for the adversary (not even sure that's the correct term?) to equal one? $$\underset{K}{Pr} \left [A^{F_k(\cdot)} = 1 \right ]$$ Source (Page ...
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### AES key/ciphertext space sizes

This is giving me a brain ache now... If I have AES-128, block is 128 bit, then every plaintext (128-bit) can be encrypted to some ciphertext that is also 128-bit. This is the block size. But: 128-bit ...
425 views

### File encryption with one keypair?

I'm working on a program that uses an ECC keypair in a (password protected) PKCS12 file (.pfx) to encrypt files. I like this method because I think it will be higher security (using ECDH to negotiate ...
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### Master keys for decrypting?

I'm not a Cryptography expert, but i've seen this topic sometimes on the Web: Master decrypt keys. Most of the people said that "Master decrypt key" does not exist. This makes sense if you developed ...
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### How can I validate generated session keys in SRP-6a protocol

I have genereted two equal session keys on client and server successfully. But I couldn't understand how each other should validate that they have same session keys. On the client I generated a SHA1 ...
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### What are unified addition and differential addition in elliptic curve point arithmetic?

A lot of papers use these terms but I do not find a proper explanation of them. Can somebody tell the meaning / difference / intuition / application and if possible with an example.
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### Why is RSA encryption significantly faster than decryption?

I am designing an implementation of RSA . I recorded computation times in Java by using System.currentTimeMillis(). It returned an encryption time of 0.05 ms and ...
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### Berlekamp-Massey algorithm: case when sequence length is less than double the length of the LFSR

Suppose that we have a sequence of $N$ digits which is produced by a Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) and the shortest such LFSR is of length $L$. A very important tool in cryptanalysis of stream ...
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### Implementations of Ntru TLS

Has anyone come across any implementations of Ntru TLS? I'm working a project for uni that does quantum secure encryption. It relies on a mix of Ntru & AES, but I can't find an implementation of ...
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### what kind of hash function can provide a short hash and be collision resistant?

When you try to connect via SSH, you see a signature which is short but I heard it is even stronger than sha256. It is perhaps stronger because it uses more rounds. Is there a hash function or a ...
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### How can an S-Box be reversed?

So, as an exercise to greater understand some things about cryptography, I decided to try and implement GOST 28147-89, which uses eight 4x4 S-Boxes. I can grasp the concept of putting 4 bits through ...
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### Is it possible to generate an RSA SHA1 signature only from a public key?

Is it possible to generate signature only from Public key. See example below where i have valid signature but what if I change hash ? Is then any way to do this? Public key(160 bytes): ...
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### Is sharing the modulus for multiple RSA key pairs secure?

In the public-key system RSA scheme, each user holds beyond a public modulus $m$ a public exponent, $e$, and a private exponent, $d$. Suppose that Bob's private exponent is learned by other users. ...
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### AES encryption with shared IV

Sorry about the horrible title, didn't now what to say. I'm trying to avoid having to send an IV with every message purely to keep packet sizes down, so I thought of a method to establish a "IV ...
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### 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 ...
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### Encrypting a key with the same key

I am new to crypto and trying to understand why it would be insecure to use AES to encrypt a key with the same key. Basically, something like this: encrypt(key, key) What happens when both key and ...
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### Low complexity implementation of a small blocksize cipher (< 64 bit)

Searching for "small blocksize cipher" finds a number of discussions on the topic, mostly refering to FPE. This one in particular suggests using AES as the round function of a Feistel network. The ...
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### Extract private RSA key from USB cryptographic token using Bardou et al. attack (variant of “million message attack”)

There is a side channel attack on tamper-resistant USB cryptographic tokens using padding-oracle, described by Bardou, Focardi, Kawamoto, Simionato, Steel and Tsay, titled "Efficient padding oracle ...
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### Why is triple-DES using three different keys vulnerable to a meet-in-the-middle-attack?

Among other sources, this wikipedia entry states that triple DES using three seperate keys (k1, k2, k3) is vulnerable to meet-in-the-middle-attacks, while triple DES using only two keys (k1, k2, k1) ...
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### How to break AES CBC with PKCS#5 padding?

If I have a string encoded with AES CBC with PKCS#5 padding, how can one possibly decrypt/crack it? What are the approaches that one can take to break its security?
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### SRP6a client server exchanged message order

In SRP6a, the public key of server is send after receiving the public key of client A. Its that okay that B send along together with s right after client send the username, and then later on client ...
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### Use of CBC-AES-256 to encrypt usernames

I came across some code in our project that encrypts usernames (limited to 50 chars, most are less than 10) using the following parameters: IV size is 16 bytes Key size is 32 bytes Algorithm is ...
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### Selective format-compliant JPEG encryption?

I am working towards building a format-compliant encryption system for pictures. The aim of it is to be able to obscure specific areas of a picture (i.e. faces, car license numbers...) while keeping ...
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### Is signing a hash instead of the full data considered secure?

I reference object in some of my code in hashes. The signature is itself is another object separate from the one I am signing (for obvious reason). I consider simpler to simply sign the reference to ...
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### ASCII Message in TV show? [closed]

So I was watching a popular series tonight (Person Of Interest) when suddenly during a frame change I noticed a very quick blue screen with writing. At the time I never thought anything of it as it ...
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### Measuring Shannon's diffusion

Shannon's idea of diffusion is fundamental to cryptography. Besides being a descriptive idea, is there any work on measuring or expressing it? Saying something like "System A has more diffusion than ...
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### Why does the SRP-6 calculation of B include a multiplier k = 3?

In SRP-6 $B$ is calculated as $B=kv+ g^b, k=3$. What is the purpose of $k$, and why was it fixed as $3$? (In SRP-6a, this value $3$ is replaced by $k = H(N,g)$, but this question is about SRP-6.)