# All Questions

2k views

### How can I encrypt + authenticate short strings into similar short ciphertexts?

I wish to manipulate short ASCII strings (namely unpredictable domain names) into a form which cryptographically assures authenticity and confidentiality, for use in the local part of email addresses. ...
211 views

### Why is “semantically secure” important for cryptosystems?

The first question: what is the exact definition of semantically secure? Basically, a cryptosystem is semantically secure if given the public key and the ciphertext, an adversary cannot learn any ...
3k views

### SHA1 no longer considered secure for SSL Certificates — what about Cipher Suites?

Many browsers and Internet companies have recently claimed that SSL Certificates with a signature algorithm of SHA1 will imminently no longer be considered secure. Most notably, Google and Google ...
354 views

### Does salt size affect password hash security?

I use PBKDF2-SHA512 with an iteration count of 128,000 to hash my passwords. I use a CSPRNG to generate a salt per password. However, I am unsure about the ideal size of the salt. I have read a lot of ...
1k views

### Is RSA key size the size of private key exponent?

I have implemented a key pair generation scheme for RSA algorithm. I have taken the length of private key exponent as RSA key size, but then I've got to know that RSA key size is the size of the ...
483 views

### Proof of storage scheme

I'm familiar with client puzzles, where the client performs some work and there is a way to prove to the server that the client has done so. Is there a way to do this, but where the client's resource ...
1k views

### How do institutions like banks do RSA with big primes?

When encrypting with RSA it is often infeasible to decrypt by just doing c^d mod n, because for example when using the primes $(p,q)=(12553,1233)$, which are small ...
905 views

### Could quantum computers “break” symmetric crypto-systems (e.g. AES)?

These days I'm reading about quantum computing and quantum cryptography which I've found extremely interesting. Well, I also read some blog posts of Bruce Schneier talking about how quantum computers ...
302 views

### LT codes with Homomorphic hashing

I have been working on a project implementing LT codes with Homomorphic hashing (inspired from http://blog.notdot.net/2012/08/Damn-Cool-Algorithms-Homomorphic-Hashing and ...
403 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 ...
4k views

### Common modulus attack on RSA when the 2 public exponents differ by a single bit

This is an exam question an i have no idea how to recover the message m. John wants to send an encrypted message to mary who has a pair of RSA keys, However, John does not know Mary's public key and ...
1k views

### Is the AES Key Schedule weak?

After reading this paper entitled Key Recovery Attacks of Practical Complexity on AES Variants With Up To 10 Rounds I was left wondering why the key schedule of AES is invertable. In the paper the ...
188 views

### When all shares of a secret are given to adversary as a permuted matrix

Suppose we have a secret $\sigma$. The secret comes from a universe in which the elements are not necessarily distributed uniformly. We split $\sigma$ into $n$ shares $[\sigma_1,...,\sigma_n]$ ...
168 views

### How to generate a bilinear group of prime order p for key generation

I am trying to implement an IEEE Paper In Cryptography. I read many reference regarding an RSA key generation. But i am confused with above statement. Please someone explain me What it says with ...
631 views

### Combining several symmetric ciphers using XOR

I have seen a talk by Rüdiger Weis, where he says that you can combine two symmetric ciphers using XOR. According to him, that has the effect that its sufficient if only one of the ciphers is secure. ...
5k views

### Why is HMAC-SHA1 still considered secure?

This Q & A http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/33123/hotp-with-as-hmac-hashing-algoritme-a-hash-from-the-sha-2-family says that the security of HMAC-SHA1 does not depend on resistance to ...
142 views

### Statistical saturation attack on block ciphers

I was wondering if anyone around here could give me some explanation on this type of attacks. Pretty much the only thing that I could find is A Statistical Saturation Attack against the Block Cipher ...
400 views

### Consequences of AES without any one of its operations

Suppose AES-$128$. There are $4$ operations in AES's encryption, they are SubByte, Shift Row, MixColumns and AddRoundKey. Question: If I remove one of the following opearations, what will happen to ...
153 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 ...
639 views

### GCM encryption for 256-bit and 512-bit block ciphers

The Galois/Counter Mode of Operation (GCM) This paper describe using GCM mode with 128-bit and 64-bit block cipher. Can we use this mode for 256-bit and 512-bit block cipher?
447 views

### Where does the $\varphi(n)$ part of RSA come from?

$e d \equiv 1 \pmod{\varphi(n)}$ Where does the $\varphi(n)$ part come from? How did the inventors of RSA arrive at $\varphi(n)$?
794 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 ...
639 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 ...
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. ...
758 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 ...
644 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 ...
109 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 ...
401 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 ...
313 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 ...
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 ...
450 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 ...
401 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 ...
418 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 ...
190 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 ...
208 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 ...
75 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?
261 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 ...
347 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 ...
323 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, ...
318 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: ...
297 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 ...
302 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 ...
741 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 ...
847 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 ...