# All Questions

784 views

### Recommended way of adding a pepper/secret key to password before hashing?

There have been several questions regarding password hashing here and on Security.SE. A "pepper" is sometimes mentioned – an application-specific secret key. The canonical answer on password hashing ...
629 views

### Attacking historical ciphers methodology

It's more a theoretical question of how would you approach it. All you know about the ciphertext it's was generated with a historical cipher. The ciphertext appears to be random, BUT it's divided into ...
628 views

### Timing attack on modular exponentiation

It is known that computing $a^x \bmod N$ takes $O(|x| + \mathrm{pop}(x))$ multiplications modulo $N$, where $|x|$ is the number of bits of $x$ and $\mathrm{pop}(x)$ is the number of $1$ bits (Hamming ...
391 views

### What is a block cipher?

I have read about block ciphers, but I do not understand the topic completely. Is a block cipher a way to send data or a way to encrypt data? How is the data divided into multiply blocks before it ...
2k views

### Are there any standards of multi-prime RSA key generation?

FIPS 186-3 specifies a method to generate DSA parameters. Is there anything similar (official standard or widely-accepted recommendation) that shows how to generate the primes for multi-prime RSA?
2k views

### Cryptanalysis of Linear Feedback Shift Registers

It is well known that simple m-sequence linear feedback shift registers have a linear algebraic structure and therefore the generator seed can easily be deduced using the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm. ...
752 views

### Which block cipher modes of operation allow a predictable IV?

Recently I found out that in the modes CBC and PCBC the IV may be passed in cleartext but never must be predictable. However for this part of my app I rather have the IV be predictable and unique ...
637 views

### Does the XML Encryption flaw affect SSL/TLS?

A "practical attack against XML's cipher block chaining (CBC) mode" has been demonstrated: XML Encryption Flaw Leaves Web Services Vulnerable. Does this weakness of CBC-mode which is used here also ...
168 views

### RSA enc/decryption with multiple prime modulus using CRT

Every information I found on internet about RSA-CRT encryption/decryption uses only two primes. I'm interested in my project in doing that using multiple (up to 8) primes. The general idea is to ...
100 views

### A “one time pad” can be thought of a Vigenere cipher with

A "One Time Pad" can be thought of a Vigenere cipher with... An infinitely long key A secure symmetric key Multiple ciphertext alphabets A columnar transposition I had this question come up ...
388 views

### How to roll my own hardware RNG?

I am considering building a hardware RNG myself using cheap parts. Is this a good idea and safe enough? Random sources: amplified Zener noise from one randomly chosen ...
295 views

### ECC - ElGamal with Montgomery or Edwards type curves (curve25519, ed25519) - possible?

I know the usual way of using getting shared secrets for encryption with ECC is DH, however, this only works with two keypairs of exactly the same kind, for example two curve25519- or two ...
150 views

### Why verify padding at all?

Whenever a ciphertext is decrypted using a block-cypher, we need to remove the padding. There are different ways to add padding, but they usually set the last byte of the last block to the number of ...
439 views

### Should HMAC or NMAC or plain Keccak be used for a secure MAC?

After some digging around in the HMAC spec I found this (paraphrased): Step 1: If the length of Key equals the block size of the hash function (512 bits/64 Bytes for SHA-256), set the key equal ...
379 views

### Convert m-Sequence into a de Bruijn Sequence

In his paper Alternating Step Generator Controlled by de Bruijn Sequence, C.G. Günther states on page three that a de Bruijn sequence (..) can easily be obtained from an m-sequence (maximal length ...
1k views

### Meet-in-the-middle with checking complexity

In regards to meet in the middle type attacks, I have been considering the amount of operations in order to successfully find a key given two sets of plaintext / ciphertext pairs. All of the sources I ...
415 views

### What are the standard procedures in cryptanalysis to analyze unknown ciphertext?

What are the "standard procedures in cryptanalysis" to analyze unknown ciphertext? In other words: Are there any protocols, officially acknowledged checklists or something like that which represent a ...
185 views

### iterated discrete log problem

Consider the following problem: given $g_1 \ldots g_i,h_1 \ldots h_i \in G$, $\forall i$ find $x_i$ such that $g_i^{x_i}=h_i$ For $i=1$ this is the discrete log problem and is assumed to to have ...
3k views

### How to perform file encryption using 128-Bit AES?

I am confused, how can I encrypt a file using 128 Bit Advanced Encryption Standard? Do I need only to encrypt the file name and it's content or is there something that I need to do to encrypt it? Is ...
197 views

### RSA private key d knowing e,n

I need to find RSA private key $(d, N)$ knowing $(e, N)$. It's "own" RSA implementation. As i know $p$ is random 70 bit number, then $q$ is $p-2^{10} < q < p+2^{10}$ $d$ is max 16 bit long with ...
72 views

### On composition of encryption schemes

If we composed (as in function composition) multiple CPA-secure encryption schemes would the result also be CPA-secure?
253 views

### Is it safe to encrypt random data using ECB mode?

If I have 48 random bytes, is it safe to encrypt them using ECB mode? Or is there still a good reason to use another mode like CTR, CBC, etc.? Context is this: I am creating something like a TLS ...
327 views

### Which characters to take into account when calculating unicity distance?

I need to calculate the unicity distance of a block cipher. Assuming I know that the plaintext is an English message I considered using 53 as the size of the alphabet, since the message could contain ...
315 views

### Skein or Keccak stream cipher construction

I am wondering if using Skein or the Keccak hash algorithm in this construction (as a stream cipher) is secure: $H$ = Keccak or Skein hash with a 256 bit output $K$ = The main 256 bit random key, ...
297 views

### How to calculate complexity of ElGamal cryptosystem?

How to calculate time and space complexity of ElGamal encryption and decryption as there are two exponentiation operation during encryption and one during decryption? Here is my code for encryption: ...
2k views

### What curve and key length to use in ECDSA with BouncyCastle

I'm developing a client/server system in Java which is not interacting with third party software, so I don't have to worry about compatibility. At a certain point, I need the client and server to ...
292 views

### Is AES-256 over AES-128 weakening the original encryption?

When transfering data using TLS the browser and server agree the cipher suite to be used - so for example this could be chosen as AES-128 and is (probably) outside of my control. If I separately ...
298 views

### ECC partially blind signature scheme verification

Continued from Is there a flaw in this ECC blind signature scheme? The problem I needed a partially blind signature scheme for one of my projects, but couldn't find one on the internet, so I've made ...
723 views

### How can an encryption scheme be indistinguishable with multiple messages but vulnerable to an adaptive chosen-plaintext attack?

In order to be indistinguishable with respect to multiple messages, wouldn't the scheme need to be nondeterministic? How would this then possibly be vulnerable to an adaptive CPA?
145 views

I'm writing a client application that wants to store some secret information with a storage service. The client has to authenticate the user with the service and the service should not be able to ...
3k views

### How to find generator $g$ in a cyclic group?

As generator $g$ is use in DH how to find combination of prime $p$ and $g$? eg: if we choose $p=23$ its generator is $7$ (given in book) how to find it?
826 views

### Is a PBKDF2-derived master key easier cracked if very many Data Protection Keys are derived from it?

I'm referring the NIST document about PBKDF2, NIST Special Publication 800-132, Recommendation for Password-Based Key Derivation, Part 1: Storage Applications, Page 8 and 9, section 5.4 Using the ...
398 views

### IV Security Clarification

After doing lots of reading on SO and other websites relating to AES cryptography, I am trying to understand the security issues surrounding IV's. There seems to be a lot of confusion and ...
946 views

### risk of attacker decrypting RSA ciphertext without public or private key

As I describe in my previous question I am trying to decide if it's worth it for me to use the Offline Private Key Protocol in creating some long term private archives, instead of just going with a ...
257 views

### Message authentication codes construction

I was reading the paper $[1]$ and came across the scheme that I show below. While I understand the scheme well, I don't understand why they prepend a 0 to the block containing $r$ and a 1 to all other ...
3k views

### Calculating the inverse modularity of the determinant for Hill cipher

I'm trying to decrypt a message encrypted with Hill Cipher, but I don't understand how to find the determinant so it solves the equation $det * 1/det = 1 mod 26$. The determinant for my key matrix is ...
122 views

### How is an epsilon of 1/1000 non-negligible?

Lately I've been studying cryptography and in the current course I'm taking we're reviewing statistical tests and how they can be used to determine if a pseudo-random generator is secure or not. ...
202 views

### Is this variant of SRP for peer-to-peer authentication practical?

I'm interested in using a modified form of SRP as a peer-to-peer authentication method. Since neither side is acting as a host, one of the primary design goals for SRP (that the client doesn't need ...
286 views

### Does perfect secrecy imply uniform ciphertext distribution?

I suspect the answer is no, but I am not able to either prove it, or provide an example. In Katz and Lindell's book, it is only said that with a perfectly secret encryption scheme, the plain and ...
297 views

### Secure double encryption using CPA and CCA

Do you mind if you give me any hints, links or ideas about how to improve the security of double regular encryption and decryption, by using CPA game and CCA game, it sounds interesting question, and ...
402 views

### what is the difference between IBE and ABE schemes

Can somebody explain in simple words. real life example light help and limitations of these schemes etc.
172 views

### Choosing primes in the Paillier cryptosystem

In the first step of key generation phase in Paillier cryptosystem given here. It's given that ( length($p$) == length($q$) )$\implies$ gcd$(pq,(p-1(q-1)))$=1 where length($k$) = # bits in ...
100 views

### Hash of multiset of values, which lets me compute the hash of the union

Cryptographic hash functions normally take as input a bitstring. I am looking for a hash function that takes as input a finite multiset of values. In other words, given $S \subset \{0,1\}^*$, I want ...
5k views

### How do I derive the time complexity of encryption and decryption based on modular arithmetic?

I want to calculate the time complexity of two encryption and decryption algorithms. The first one (RSA-like) has the encryption $$C := M^e \bmod N$$ and decryption $$M_P := C^d \bmod N.$$ ...
227 views

### Lightweight Asymmetric encryption algorithm

I'm an embedded systems researcher, and new in the crypto field. Actually, I need to know if there are any lightweight asymmetric encryption algorithm especially considering the time needed for key ...
80 views

### Altering the message space of Paillier

Is there any obstacle if we restrict in Paillier the plaintext values to be drawn from $\mathbb{Z}_N^*$ instead of $\mathbb{Z}_N$ as the original scheme indicates.
119 views

### Efficient Robust Private Set Intersection Questions

I am trying to implement Efficient Robust Private Set Intersection using additive ElGamal. I am trying to run the full protocol mentioned in Section 3.4 on the following inputs: $p = 17$ (prime) \$g ...
249 views

### I've got my private key compromised. How does CRL work?

How does certificate revocation list (CRL) work? How can I send a request to the CA to add my current private key to the CRL, so no one except me can add my certificate to the CRL? Related: - How can ...