# All Questions

208 views

### Block ordering and security in a MAC?

To authenticate a message $m = m_1 \,\|\, \dots \,\|\,m_n$ the tag $t := F_k(r) \oplus F_k(m_1) \oplus \dotsb \oplus F_k(m_n)$ is used, where r is uniform random number $(0,1)^n$ and $m=(0,1)^n$. Even ...
255 views

### Is the SILC protocol still used? [closed]

I'm looking into implementing a private SILC server for friends (and possibly their friends). And after visiting the Wikipedia entry for SILC protocol, it seems all the official pages linked at the ...
53 views

### Weird base64-like (?) encoding [on hold]

I have some encoded strings which are probably encoded in a base64-variant - except that there aren't only 64 chars, but all the (printable) ASCII chars between 33 and 126 (0x21 to 0x7E). I've ...
16 views

### Data in frequency modulated audio [on hold]

I'd like to have a peek at the firmware of a piece of Hardware. Its firmware is available as a .wav file to be uploaded via audio jack. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6S_PcWWM1YlQnNwT2FSMnFzVE0 ...
12 views

### Does the length of the keyword used for keytable for Playfair matter?

So for Playfair, we choose a keyword and put that in the keytable with no duplicates. Then, we fill the rest of the table with alphabets in order that are not in the keyword without 'J'. Does the ...
47 views

### Bcrypt input length vs collisions

I am currently implementing oauth2 bearer token authentication and am storing the tokens bcrypt encrypted. My question is how long should the tokens be to achieve maximum security. E.g. at what length ...
42 views

### How can IND-CPA encryption be identity revealing?

This is problem 10 of Chapter 4 "Symmetric Encryption" (pdf) from Lecture notes by Bellare and Rogaway: An IND-CPA secure encryption scheme might not conceal identities, in the following sense: ...
25 views

### Why the group order has to be prime for pairing-based cryptography [duplicate]

I'm trying to get into pairing-based cryptography and I don't see why the group order of the group G in the pairing function e:G*G-> G_t has to be a prime number. I don't find an argument why ...
21 views

### automated decryption [migrated]

I need to store credentials on my private root server in order to run some automated tasks like file transfer from remote servers via sftp etc. I might use shell scripting or maybe php to run those ...
38 views

### Encrypting a 160-bit plaintext into a 160 bit ciphertext with a 128-bit Block Cipher [on hold]

So I have a kind of interesting issue. I have a field in my data store which must take exactly 160 bits of information. Some users will choose to make this data encrypted, some won't, so some of those ...
35 views

### Which ECB ciphertext stealing scheme is this?

I am stuck with identifying ciphertext stealing method with the following properties: mode of operation is ECB; recommended padding scheme for this application is PKCS#7, but apparently it is not ...
32 views

I read this post from Ben Tasker describing how to take control of a powerline network. Since I am interested in security, I tried to do the same thing, to see if it was possible. I used Devolo ...
31 views

### Is it possbile to get same set of public and private keys twice while creating CSR ? If so where does the conflict happens !?

I'm new to cryptography and please clarify if my below assumption is wrong. Lets assume, that two different banks creating CSR and they get identical public and private key pairs of RSA. In such ...
22 views

### How exactly is an enigma simulation software supposed to encrypt alphabets?

EDIT: The model I'm trying to make is "Enigma 1". I learned initially about it from a book called "Code Book" and then looked at it in detail from its wikipedia page. The rotor wiring and other ...
56 views

36 views

### Email: Degrees of Security [closed]

It has been explained to me by IT that there is no such thing as totally secure email - but rather a spectrum. If systems are secured via https and SSL what degree of encryption/security are we ...
45 views

### Why an upside down path on the evaluation of branching program on encrypted data?

Suggested by Ricky Demer in this post, I am reading the paper "Evaluating Branching Programs on Encrypted Data"(TCC 2007), which uses one-round strong OT protocol to implement homomorphic evaluation ...
41 views

### Small subgroup attack on Diffie-Hellman

I am trying to understand the small subgroup attack on Diffie-Hellman. I will present the attack and try to explain why it works. Let be a group $\mathbb{Z}_p^*$ where $p$ is a large prime, so the ...
52 views

### variant of Diffie–Hellman key exchange protocol

Motivation Consider the following variant of Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol for two parties: Assume Alice and Bob share $\mathbb{G}$ of order $q$ generated by $g$ Alice samples $a$ ...
31 views

### Testing PRNG quality from ECC public keys?

Having a large set of ECC public keys $P_i = n_iB$ on a fixed curve $E$ over a prime field, is there a way to determine if coefficients $n_i$ were generated using a bad PRNG? In other words, can a ...
29 views

### Details related to the ZIP algorithm used in PGP message encryption? [closed]

I am very new to PGP. PGP encryption works with hash function, asymmetric encryption, symmetric encryption and a zip algorithm (LZ77). What I know is that the zip algorithm is used to reduce the ...
112 views

### Example describing Baek and Zheng’s threshold identity-based decryption scheme

I am trying to work through an example of Baek and Zheng’s “threshold identity-based decryption scheme” and I tried a lot to solve this, but somewhere I’m doing something wrong. I hope someone can ...
36 views

### Validate per round rather than cycle-walking in FPE

I was thinking about FPE specifically for numbers, CC, phone, SS #, etc. and I thought of some small "optimization" that could be implemented. Can I validate the string length after each round in the ...
35 views

### Is hashing data with dynamic keys still worth effort?

some years ago it took long time to "decrypt" hashes because they took slow cpu to brute force. Nowadays they use graphic cards for stuff like this and can do this most time in less than 20 Minutes ...
44 views

### How can I calculate the probability of collisions of a hashing algorithm?

I'm pulling a “Dave” and I'm designing my own hashing algorithm. Not that I intend to use it, I'm not certifiable or anything, I just want the challenge of creating something. I'm not going to get ...
101 views

### How to calculate the avalanche effect in aes-256?

I am a beginner in cryptography. I'm testing AES-128 bit key, AES-256 bit key, and Camellia-256 bit key. I'm using AES-256, 9 character salt, CBC mode, PKCS #5 padding, and the ciphertext using ...
62 views

### Understanding a faulty Needam-Schroeder protocol

Give this mutual-authentication protocol (along with the attack) in which Alice wants to communicate with Bob, I can't understand how the attack works. A chooses $N$ (nonce) and sends to C (trusted ...
52 views

### What are the problems of IKEv1 aggressive mode (compared to IKEv1 main mode or IKEv2)?

I would like to seek confirmation/clarification of the following statements about IKE: IKEv1 aggressive mode is supposed to be “insecure” if used with PSK. But as far as I can see, correct (or more ...
17 views

### memory hard password based key derivation functions?

How are memory hard functions designed for the purpose of password based key derivation? To protect against a brute force attack from a parallel machine. What design could work well with skein? The ...