# All Questions

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### Why does the DES crypto algorithm NOT use 2 rounds?

Now, if we were to go round by round, you could give a distinct reason for not using a single round since after just one round, the right half of the text comes directly, as-is, to form the left half ...
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### Finding out the greater number under zero-knowledge conditions?

Is it possible to construct a zero knowledge proof that one encrypted number is larger (or not) than another encrypted number without releasing the values of either numbers?
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### Open source implementations of Symmetric Searchable Encryption and Order Preserving Encryption [closed]

Are there open source implementations of SSE and OPE? Can anyone please point to sample codes, if available. EDIT If cryptDB is not an option, what other options are available? (Indeed, these ...
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### How secure would HMAC-SHA3 be?

It would be possible to implement the HMAC construction with (draft) SHA-3, leading to HMAC-SHA3-224, HMAC-SHA3-256, HMAC-SHA3-384, HMAC-SHA3-512 (the last 3 digits are the output size $\ell$, where ...
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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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### 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. ...
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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 ...
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### 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 ...
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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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### 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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### 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 ...
579 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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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### 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 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 ...
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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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### 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 ...
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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 ...
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### ElGamal Signature Scheme: Recovering the key when reusing randomness

Show how if Alice uses the same value of $k$ to sign two different messages $m_1$ and $m_2$, using the ElGamal signature scheme, Eve can recover the value of $a$ from the corresponding signatures ...
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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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### 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 ...
2k views

### Why does the recommended key size between symmetric and asymmetric encryption differ greatly?

In various articles it is mentioned that for secure communications, the recommended key sizes are 128-bit key size for symmetric encryption (which makes it $2^{128}$ possible keys?) and 2048-bit key ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
1k 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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### What are the requirements of a key schedule?

In the first block cipher I designed I used a CSPRNG to generate the round keys. The purpose was to at least have a chance of creating a (hopefully!) secure cipher on the first try (but please don't ...
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### Can cycle finding techniques reduce the memory usage of the MitM attack against 2DES and 3DES?

A 2DES like cipher $c=E^{(2)}_{K_2}(E^{(1)}_{K_1}(p))$ where both halves have an $n$ bit key is vulnerable to a meet-in-the-middle attack. Meet-in-the-middle using a big table Create a table ...
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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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### 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 ...
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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### 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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### 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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### 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 ...
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### What is the importance of Modular arithmetic in cryptography?

Why do we use modular arithmetic so often in Cryptography?
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### Understanding CRC

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 ...
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### What size should the HMAC key be with SHA-256?

I'm trying to generate a secret key to be used for HMAC SHA-256 signature processing. I've seen many sample of keys with variable length from 32 characters to 96 characters. What is the ironclad rule ...
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### Is there any reason not to use Single-Key EM with AES and a constant key?

I've read recently the paper "Minimalism in Cryptography: The Even-Mansour Scheme Revisited" by Dunkelman, Keller and Shamir where it is claimed that the following construction (Single-Key EM) is ...
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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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### 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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### Diffie-Hellman Parameter Check (when g = 2, must p mod 24 == 11?)

I'm adding some Diffie-Hellman groups to a program as specified in RFC 3526, More Modular Exponential (MODP) Diffie-Hellman groups for Internet Key Exchange (IKE). When I test some of the group ...
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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 ...
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### What is the security loss from reducing Rijndael to 128 bits block size from 256 bits?

As you know in the past few weeks it has emerged that NIST/NSA have been involved in weakening encryption standards over a long period of time so that they can retain the ability to break encryption ...
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### Estimating bits of entropy

Best ways to estimate average bits of entropy in a byte stream. I know there are different statistical tests out there (NIST, Dieharder, etc), which all do different ways of analyzing entropy. What ...
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### Compare two hashes with different salt

I'm storing the salted hash of a credit card number in a database. What I'd like to be able to do is determine if two different entries in the same database correspond to the same credit card. ...
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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### 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 ...
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 ...