# All Questions

134 views

### Cracking secret key of a MD5 hash?

I have a MD5 hash which is obtained by hashing certain strings appended by a pipe character ( | ). (I know the values of these) A secret key is added as a suffix to this (I don't know the secret key). ...
365 views

### What is more secure, a ciphertext encrypted with AES-256 or encrypted with 3 different AES-128 keys?

Or better yet, is encrypting a block with 2 AES-128 keys just as secure as encrypting a block with 1 AES-256 key? By the way, I've only recently been learning cryptography stuff; I've made working ...
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### Showing that $2^{N-1}\equiv1\pmod N$ when $N=2^p-1$ for prime $p$

I got this question on a previous exam and I got it wrong. I've gone back through it several times since then, but I can't seem to get it. I would really like to know how to do it, so if someone could ...
74 views

### How to figure out the size of the output of a cryptographic checksum function

There is such a putting in Bishop's Introduction to computer security, page 118 as following: Definition 8–2. A cryptographic checksum function (also called a strong hash function or a strong ...
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### public key certificate on TLS/SSL

Currently I am working on a public key certificate. I got a question: Why is a public key certificate needed for TLS/SSL? Wouldn't TLS/SSL itself is enough? What is the role of the certificate?
64 views

### Encrypt a file for random access but only after an initial read of the whole file

I'm symmetrically encrypting a file (using a random salt and a user supplied password with PKCS5S2, i.e., nothing special) and I need to be able to access it randomly. Therefore I'm using a stream ...
130 views

### Security of chameleon hash functions

With the knowledge of the trapdoor, we are able to compute the same digest for differents messages. I've read that given two messages $m$, $m'$ and two numbers $r$, $r'$ such that ...
139 views

### Elliptic curve parameters

What's the meaning of 160 bit Curve in Elliptic curve ? or 192 or 224 or 256 and etc. And What is the standard for selecting this number of bit ? why they don't say 100 bit curve?
124 views

### Does brute force attack use the program that created the ciphertext?

I've read several articles about brute force cryptanalytic attacks, but none explicitly say what algorithm is being run for each attempt, nor what criteria is used to declare an attempt a success or a ...
64 views

### Is elliptic curve point multiplication semantically secure?

Is elliptic curve point multiplication semantically secure? I'd like to know if there are some sets of elliptic curve parameters (e.g. NIST curves) that are proved to be semantically secure or that ...
101 views

### Pollard's Rho - Constructing the random function

Suppose we are aiming to solve the discrete logarithm problem $\alpha^x=\beta$ in some cyclic group $G=<\alpha>$. Then we are looking for a (uniformly) random sequence of elements of the form ...
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### How to calculate kinv from the given k value

I am implementing an ECDSA NIST test vectors verification application. The test vectors are taken from http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cavp/#09. One of the test vectors is given below: ...
127 views

### Perfectly secure shift cipher

Prove that if only one character is encrypted using a shift cipher, then the shift cipher is perfectly secure. I want to show that $P(P=p | C=c)=P(P=p)$. But I don't know how to relate. Can anyone ...
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### Detect desynchronization in HOTP authentication [duplicate]

In HOTP authentication, is there a way for a system to detect that the token has been desynchronized? If so how does it know that the OTP was generated from a desynchronized (but valid) token and is ...
118 views

### Elliptic curve group over a prime finite field $F_p$

If $p$ is a big prime, and the elliptic curve $E$ is defined over $F_p$ by the equation $y^2=x^3+ax+b$ where $a,b\in F_p$. The point on $E/F_p$ together with the infinite point $\mathcal{O}$ form a ...
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### In public key cryptography, how many keys are required for secure communication between n parties?

In public key cryptography, how many keys are required for secure communication between n parties? In my view the answer should be $n^2$. Reason: There are ‘$n$’ Parties. Every Party has One (1) ...
97 views

### How can I process data within a cloud securely?

I'm new to programming and I'm getting ready to design a proof of concept for an app that I'm thinking of building. Problem is I'm a complete noob to cryptography and need a little nudge to point me ...
55 views

### Is the product of two primes only factorisable by those two primes? [closed]

The question is as per the subject line. Does the fundamental theorem of arithmetic imply (prove?) that if I multiply two primes, then those two primes are the only factors of the product? I.e. 17 x ...
225 views

### How can we prove that two discrete logarithms are equal?

Suppose there are two elements $a = g^x$ and $b = h^x$, where $g$ and $h$ are generators in $Z^*_p$ and $p$ is a large prime. How can we prove that $a$ and $b$ have the same discrete logarithms with ...
115 views

### IV = Filename XOR CipherKey?

i want to encrypt transparently using Rijndael. So this is, what I thought of and I would like to have an opinion from "Experts" whether this will harm encryption strenght. I am using chunks of 1MB ...
166 views

### Thoughts on secure hashing and the “mds” algorithm

Almost a decade ago Raymond Chen blogged [1] about the "hash reset attack" cautioning developers to record the content length in addition to the message digest. Recently I came up with a variation on ...
643 views

### Decrypt AES-128 with key file but missing IV? [duplicate]

I want to decrypt a file that has been encrypted using AES-128 in CBC mode using OpenSSL. I got the “.key” file – which is 32 digits – but when I try to decrypt with OpenSSL, the program asks me for ...
182 views

### HKDF vs TLS PRF. Which of the one is better? [closed]

Which of the one (HKDF or TLS1.1+ PRF) is more secure and why?
207 views

### AES CBC MAC splicing attack

I'm trying to implement AES CBC MAC splicing attack in Python, the idea is: given a message M, its tag Tm (MAC(M) = T), a new message N and its tag Tn we build a message such as: M||N = (M1, ..., Mn, ...
103 views

### Is it possible to use structures other than finite fields?

I have some difficulties to understand why we are using finite fields in cryptography. Why do we use field? Why not ring or group? Is that really necessary that the field is finite? Why not real ...
1k views

### ECC key size and signature size

My understanding of ECDSA signature length is that it depends on the key size. So for instance, if a "prime256v1" is used, the signature length will be 64 because (n/8)*2 and for "secp384r1" it will ...
307 views

### Convert a number to sha-1

I have a task to find a the message for which the SHA-1 hash's last 11 symbols in hexadecimal presentation corresponds to an 11-digit number. I have been given the following example solution: For ...
109 views

### Explicit Key SHA-1

I'm reading “Collision-Resistant Hashing? Towards Making UOWHFs Practical” and in the Section 2 it says: Hash functions like MD5 or SHA-1 have no explicit key. But no notion of ...
488 views

### Diffie-Hellman Secret Exponent Size and Shared Secret Usage [closed]

I'm developing my own protocol and I'll use Diffie-Hellman to achieve PFS. It will work in this way: The symmetric encryption algorithm will be AES_256_CBC. The DH parameters will be: P: a 2048-bit ...
1k views

### If I have the unencrypted text and the encrypted text, can I calculate the key?

If I have the unencrypted text and the encrypted text, can I calculate the key? It seems logical based on my limited knowledge of encryption that I should be able to... but it also seems like too ...
117 views

### The weak link is the password?

Consider a secure modern block cipher like AES/Serpent/Twofish. I hear everyone say that the complexity is $2^{128}$ for a 128 block cipher. But isn't the weak link the actual hashed and salted ...
471 views

### Serpent block cipher : S0 to S7 functions unclear

I am presently implementing the serpent block cipher in C++ following the specifications. It's important to mention that I'm implementing the cipher in bitslice mode. You'll need the The full ...
636 views

### probability of N hash digits colliding

What is the probability of the first N hash digits colliding? for example i made a script that appends the first 5 digits of the file's sha1 hash to the name of the file. So will the probability of ...
120 views

### Distributed Asymmetric Key Decryption with threshold

Threshold decryption of public key encryption schemes allows the decryption key to be distributed among trustees. Then, to decrypt the cipher text it requires at least threshold t trustees to run the ...
214 views

### What does the cipher-text overhead means?

I have two questions here. What does the cipher-text overhead means? Why we were suggested not to encrypts the plain-text itself instead just encrypts only the key (i.e random number)
121 views

### What kind of adversary is a compromised party?

Imagine multiple parties executing a secure multiparty computation protocol to evaluate a function securely. Let Alice be one of the parties who is intended to get all the partial results and combine ...
295 views

### Recommended authenticated stream cipher for minimum overhead?

I'm running my TCP/IP protocol secured by encrypting each packet with AES128/CBC, bundling a SHA256 HMAC over that packet. This causes quite a bit of space overhead for small packets, so at first I ...
153 views

### The security of the AES secret itself

I am writing an application, running on a server, where multiple users access data from a database which is AES encrypted with a master secret. The master secret itself is initially randomly ...
126 views

### what actually the function for e(g,g)^xy

I doing a project using ABE "Attribute-Based-Encryption" but i didn't understand what actually the function for $e(g,g)^xy$. Just tell what's the calculation need to perform here. I gone through no of ...
148 views

### What key length is required to keep simple keyed “hash” secure?

In a previous question, I described a particular keyed "hash" that mapped a 5-digit input code into a 5-digit output code. It used a 8-bit key which is very insecure - more than 99% of the time, you ...
147 views

### Physical Level Encryption

What types of algorithms that are capable of signing a message are out there that run on a physical level, e.g. lacking the infrastructure of a standard PC, no memory, processor or motherboard in the ...
78 views

### How to hash a structure that needs to include that hash's outcome?

so I am busy writing a TCP protocol in which I send a "packet header" with each packet of data. This packet header is a structure that contains information about the data that was sent. I want to ...
137 views

### Certificate == signed public key

For primes p and q used to create a keypair, I understand that the following operation is used to create a signature: $M^d (\bmod\ N)$ where d and N have their usual meanings and M is the message. ...
526 views

### Ciphertext-only attack on Simplified DES

Is it possible to deduce the plaintext block or the key, given only a Simplified-DES ciphertext block (e.g. c=01110110)? I'm reading Cryptography And Network Security, by William Stallings and I'm bit ...
91 views

### Voice Call Safety [closed]

When i was dealing with an assistant of my bank through mobile call, she asked me to insert my bank login code after a beep. I was wondering if this procedure is secure against a Man In the Middle ...
142 views

### Can one detect if two pairs of elements in Zp have the same exponential relation?

Suppose that $p$ is a safe prime of 2048 bits ($p = 2q + 1$, and $q$ is prime). Suppose that one is given two pairs $(x_1, y_1)$ and $(x_2, y_2)$ such that: $y_1 = x_1^{r_1} \pmod p$ \$y_2 = ...
2k views

### GPG vs PGP vs OpenSSH and management of them [closed]

What is the main difference of the three? Can I use only one of them for everything (e.g. GPG for SSH authentication) If I encrypt my private key with a pass-phrase, is it strong enough so that if ...
139 views

### Secure way to compare two secret numbers without disclosing them?

For example, two people want to know who is the older, without disclosing their age. Is there a secure way to do this without a third party involved?