# All Questions

211 views

### Non-cryptographic hash function as MAC for stream ciphers

I understand that for a stream cipher to be useful, there must be a way to verify that the message was not tampered with (bits were flipped by an attacker). So, instead of using some cryptographic ...
193 views

### Discrete logs on elliptic curve with embedding degree 3 with the 'MOV' attack

The curve $E(\mathbb{F}_{47}):y^2=x^3+x+38$ has order $61$ and $61|47^3-1$ so the embedding degree of $E$ is $3$ and therefore the MOV attack, presumably using some sort of distortion map and a ...
8k views

### SHA-256 and AES-128

Does it make an encrypted string more secure if I use SHA256(x) instead of x as the secret key for AES-128 encryption? I do know that SHA-256 produces 64 characters of hashed string regardless of what ...
107 views

### Two files encrypted with related data versus one file

I have some code that takes a list of credit-card numbers, splits the number into two chunks, one chunk is 8 characters long, the other chunk is the remainder. Each series of chunks is saved into ...
552 views

### A proof-of-work random number generation system for Pokémon [closed]

(The original question that was here was considered too confusing, unclear, and rambling. You can still view it in the edit history, but the content is no longer useful by itself, and cannot be ...
487 views

### Security for IV in AES-GCM mode

I'd like to use AES-GCM instead of HMAC for authentication and privacy in a token used in a web application, but I'm unsure how to securely tag each token with an IV. Is it safe for me to prepend the ...
112 views

### CBC with fixed IV but changing data [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Using CBC with fixed IV I am using AES in CBC mode. For some reasons I have some issues for transmiting the IV. So I am using a fixed IV. If the first 128bits of the ...
2k views

### ANSI X9.31 standards for generating random numbers

The NIST-Recommended Random Number Generator Based on ANSI X9.31 Appendix A.2.4 Using the 3-Key Triple DES and AES Algorithms has 3DES being used three times for each 64-bit block of random data ...
4k views

### Cryptographic security of PHP mt_rand() function using Mersenne Twister algo

At stackoverflow this question has been asked. It uses additional random entropy and a hash method (among others) to try and create a cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator for PHP. ...
187 views

### Do Quantum Key Distribution and Physical Unclonable Functions combine, and how?

I see there's a project to combine Quantum Key Distribution, Physical Unclonable Functions, and classical crypto, in order to secure a high speed (100Gb/s) optical link. While there does not seem to ...
137 views

### How does this Cesar Cipher work?

Suppose I have this cryptogram: http://pastebin.com/QpfRMBg1 Clearly it's a Ceasar Cipher which decrypts to: http://pastebin.com/r50heZuU with a simple shift of 10... OKay, no big deal. Let's take a ...
174 views

### Is it safe to use RSA as a proof-of-work system?

Suppose I devised the following challenge-response proof-of-work system: A server generates a 2048-bit RSA modulus, and uses the "public" exponent (usually 65537) to sign a random nonce a fixed ...
10k views

### AES CBC mode or AES CTR mode recommended?

what's benefits and disadvantages of CBC vs CTR ? which one is more secure ?
675 views

### estimate of time required to crack sha512crypt password with JtR + OpenCL

OK, I have a shadow file with a password that I know, it is 4 letters followed by two numbers. Using John The Ripper with OpenCL support, on a laptop with AMD Radeon Mobility graphics, how long would ...
2k views

### LFSR for small numbers with large periods

I want to generate a few random numbers using an LFSR. However, the LFSR output depends on the number of taps, so for a large period I use large (relative) number of bits. This causes the numbers to ...
157 views

### elgamal based decryption mixnet

Can anybody help me to understand elgamal based decryption mixnet? Pure elgamal can be used in mixnet (re-encryption mixnet) and its very easy, and I have implemented decryption mixnet using RSA also. ...
198 views

### What does modular inversion mean?

I'm trying to implement an e-voting algorithm, which is described at the paper "Internet Voting Protocol Based on Improved Implicit Security" by Abhishek Parakh & Subhash Kak. At the Example 1 ...
512 views

### Is it safe to use file's hash as IV?

I'm encrypting some files using AES in CBC mode. I'm also using file's digest (SHA-1) to check that data is decrypted correctly (so I need to store it with file). Is it safe to use this digest as ...
209 views

### Two way encryption with random IV

I'm attempting to encrypt some information into our database to be later pulled back out and displayed to the user. Searching and reading up on different methods I found a post over at stack exchanged ...
312 views

### How do single use passwords work for an encrypted message

LastPass encrypts its data before sending it to their servers. The key for the data is generated using a combination of the master password and username. How then can a one-time password be used to ...
291 views

### Mental Poker with untrusted server (i.e. no peer to peer)

The question of implementing peer to peer mental poker has already been asked on stackoverflow. And there appears to be an implementation called LibTMCG. Also on this site a question was asked about ...
773 views

### Benefit of combining classical substitution ciphers with modern cryptography

I know that a simple monoalphabetic substitution cipher is considered extremely weak, on account of linguistic frequency-analysis attacks. However, assume the following: cleartext is encrypted ...
882 views

3k views

### Why do all SSH-RSA Keys begin with “AAAAB3NzaC1yc”?

My Friend and I have been generating a few ssh2-rsa keys and noticed that all the public keys began with "AAAAB3NzaC1yc". The similarity extended to "AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA" between two keys I ...
2k views

### Deriving Keys for Symmetric Encryption and Authentication

So here's the concept. Rather than storing 2 keys and using a random IV, which presents its own problems (key rotation, ensuring no key is used in more than 2^32 cycles, sharing the keys, etc), is it ...
1k views

### Creating an encryption key from several other keys and using hash functions

I want to combine two or more keys to create a single encryption key that relies on all of them. What is the proper method for doing that? Simple XOR? Using hash functions? Something else? I ...
771 views

### Why can't I break ElGamal encryption by brute-forcing the secret exponent?

I am doing a course on cryptography on coursera and one of the topics covered was the ElGamal Encryption system. I am using the terms as defined in Wikipedia. Alice publishes $g$ and $g^x$. ...
1k views

### Using same keypair for Diffie-Hellman and signing

Are there any security risks using a single key-pair for both key-exchange and signing? I'm mainly interested in using Curve25519 for key-exchange and Ed25519 for signing. But similar combinations, ...
428 views

### Crypto USB Devices - where is the PIN/Password stored?

I am currently looking at the security of cryto USB drives for storing x509 certificates. I have one in possession currently. It can be read/written to using the Microsoft Crypto APIs. Anytime one ...
1k views

### Why is ciphertext from low entropy plaintext not compressible?

This comes following a discussion with a colleague. My plaintext file plain consists of a about 100,000 lines of "all work and no play...". It's size is: 2.2 MB. ...
188 views

### Where can I learn basic cryptography to know more about passwords and Bitcoin?

Basically my knowledge in passwords consist of setting up a Diceware master password back then, and I know hashes are not convertible back to the original password. Some basic question I want to know ...
420 views

### Why is RSA usually limited to messages up to 1 block

I'm wondering why RSA encryption usually is only used for messages that fit into one block. For larger messages hybrid encryption in combination with symmetric ciphers like AES seem to be the solution ...
401 views

### Simple homomorphic crypto for 32-bit integers

I'm looking for a simple way to perform homomorphic crypto on 32-bit integers. My only requirement is that I can add and subtract from the plaintext value without actually decrypting it. The crypto ...
2k views

### Is 512-bit RSA still safe for signature generation?

The standard CSP on Windows XP only supports RSA up to 512-bit, which means that it's the maximum key size I can use for authenticity verification of updates. The public key is embedded in the ...
445 views

### Properties of Ideal Straight P-Boxes

What properties should an ideal straight P-Box exhibit?
176 views

### Why not use CBC, not send IV, and assume first plaintext block is garbage? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Using CBC with fixed IV Forgive me if this has been asked before, I looked but haven't seen any answers that suit. Is there any danger in using CBC, encrypting a ...
145 views

### High Power Computing for Crypto Research

Obviously, much of cryptography requires the assumption that adversaries have bounded computing power. So, I was wondering, are there any fields in cryptographic research for which high power ...
659 views

### Is there an authenticated encryption scheme where the recipient can attribute the message to a single sender?

With a standard authenticated encryption scheme (or MAC), Alice and Bob share a symmetric key. When Alice sends something to Bob, Bob can check that it is authentic. At that point, Bob can deduce ...
251 views

### Does Grover's algorithm effect block size or only key size?

We know that Grover's algorithm can speed up cracking symmetric keys. Basically the key space is halved. This means we have to use at least a 256 bit key (to get 128 bit security). I heard somewhere ...
40 views

### Will length-extension work if secret is not prefixed but appended to the data? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Why is h(m||k) insecure? Length-extension allows to append any data to the message while not knowing the secret. Any length-extension explaination one the web considers ...
892 views

### Do known-plaintext attacks exist for public key encryption?

In asymmetric ciphers we publish the public key for anyone, which means an attacker can encrypt any message they want and compare the ciphertext and plaintext without communicating with the owner of ...
426 views

### HMAC for short messages

I am using HMAC (hmac-sha256 to be precise) message authentication without encryption. My question is, is having a short message make it easy to determine what my secret key is? My C# code is as ...
129 views

### Needing to encrypt plain sight information

Okay here are my requirements. I need a solution that can do the following. Lets say I have an encrypted piece of text with the value "20". and I have UserA and UserB I give UserA the Keys (/5 and ...
135 views

### What's the strategy for future directions in cryptography? Bigger numbers/faster searching, or new methods, say, of factoring?

I'm taking a course in cryptography, and I would value any comments. This is not too technical a question, but more about directions or strategy in cryptography. My question is, is public key ...
3k views

### Why do block ciphers need a non-linear component (like an S-box)?

Why is there a requirement of "Non-Linear functions" as a component of many popular block ciphers (e.g. the S-box in DES or 3DES)? How does it make the cipher more secure? The only intuition I have ...