# All Questions

499 views

### Is it worth applying a MAC on data in a HSM?

I'm building a basic HSM out of an Arduino, and am using the following scheme to store data: Master symmetric key $k_m$ stored in firmware (secure bit set to prevent trivial extraction). Secondary ...
401 views

### Efficient algorithm for remainder calculation over prime field for ECC implementation?

I am working on 224-bit elliptic curve cryptography. In this 224-bit * 224-bit multiplication results 448-bit output. I am reducing 448-bit into prime field range( prime number $2^{224}-2^{96}+1$) ...
613 views

### Partial decryption of large file in AES-GCM (or other modes)?

Lets assume a 4gig file that is internally made of 1 million pages of 4k bytes each (page). the file was originally AES-GCM encrypted these pages (or entire file) lives across the internet i.e. ...
630 views

### Why are RSA keys encoded with ASN.1 for TLS?

Browser vendors use ASN.1 encoding for RSA certificates in the TLS protocol. RSA public keys are just a number, so why do we need encode them to something else? That increases the risk of security ...
554 views

### File encryption with one keypair?

I'm working on a program that uses an ECC keypair in a (password protected) PKCS12 file (.pfx) to encrypt files. I like this method because I think it will be higher security (using ECDH to negotiate ...
295 views

### Is there a problem with constructing a CSPRNG using MD5 or SHA1?

Is there any security concerns with building a CSPRNG using a broken hash function like MD5 or SHA1? The design is such that a CRC-like function is used for mixing entropy and MD5 is used as the ...
315 views

345 views

### One-way function and factoring

I am confused about the hardness of the one-way function behind cryptography -- if someone could factor the large number produced back into two primes quickly then the one-way function would be ...
355 views

### Verifying the integrity of ciphertext using the cleartext hash?

I want to be able to verify the integrity of a ciphertext by providing the cleartext hash, for this to work it would need to: $$hash(crypt(cleartext)) = f(hash(cleartext))$$ Where $f$ is an ...
1k views

### The use of cribs [closed]

I'm looking to incorporate more crib usage in breaking ciphers in unknown enciphering schemes, or at least to gleam what information I may. This seems to be a big hurdle to me, and I'm looking for ...
8k views

### c# Correct Triple Des Block Encryption Usage

I found the below code online, but in its original state, the encryption was not using any padding (Padding.None), and was encrypting in blocks of 8. I wasn't able to get this code to properly encrypt ...
34 views

### How is the base64 encoded signature in Craig Wright's proof constructed?

Mr. Craig S. Wright might be Satoshi Nakamoto - the inventor of bitcoin. He is currently proving the case. But how is the base64 encoded proof, that is published by himself on his blog post ...
42 views

### How is decryption done in AES CTR mode?

Since AES CTR mode uses a unique IV and counter to produce the key to XOR with the plain text to get the ciphertext, the question is so as to how decryption is done. Since AES CTR produces a ...
65 views

### SHA256(RsaPrivateKey) == AES key?

I have an RSA private key (more specifically, an SSH key in Putty format, 4096bit) and want to use its SHA256 hash as an AES256 key, instead of using an independent newly generated AES key. Are ...
37 views

### security of a block cipher mode of operation

Consider the following block cipher mode of operation: \begin{align} tag_0 &= mac\:key\\ plaintext_0' &= plaintext_0 \oplus iv\\ E(tag_0 | plaintext_0') = C_0 &= tag_1 | ciphertext_0\\ ...
51 views

### Disk encryption using AES-CBC: is reliance on previous block data a downside?

I have seen drives that boast that they use AES with CBC mode, which doesn't really make sense in my opinion, sure it's more secure than ECB (but actually, leaving security aside, ECB is better suited ...
66 views

### How can public key not reverse encryption if the algorithm is known? [duplicate]

I've been reading about WhatsApp getting "end-to-end" encryption, and when reading about it, I've notice something. If I want to send a message from cell $A$ to cell $B$, since there's a public key, ...
63 views

### Shamir secret sharing: calculate rest of shares when you know secret and one share

Using Shamir secret sharing, one is starting with a secret and end up with a number of shares based on a polynomial. For example: INPUT: secret: 123456 Shares:4 ...
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### Factoring large $N$ given oracle to find square roots modulo $N$

When $p$ and $q$ are distinct odd primes and $N = pq$, the points in $\mathbb Z_N^\ast$ have either zero or four square roots. A quarter of the points have four square roots; the rest have no ...
51 views

### How succeptible to accidental collision is the construct sha256(uuid4 + now) in Python?

I need 32 byte pseudorandom sequences that denote unique filenames and am currently using this Python code: ...
20 views

### Question about entity authentication

Say party A wants to make sure they are communicating with party B, and not an eavesdropper E. Then they will use an authentication scheme to do this. But what if there is an eavesdropper on the ...
106 views

### Do any cryptography algorithms work on numbers besides primes?

I know prime numbers are important for several algorithms and protocols. Are there any algorithms and protocols that don't require primes?
89 views

### HMAC-SHA1 vs. AES

This might be a very silly question, but I am a total novice in encryption. I don't know where to start searching for an answer to this problem. I am building applications using a proprietary ...
42 views

### Merkle signature scheme

I was browsing the Wikipedia article on Merkle signature schemes and noted that it says: The number of possible messages must be a power of two[…] Why is that? ...
44 views

### Tell where messages begin and end in a series of ciphertext blocks?

With block ciphers, I understand that the plaintext is first broken down into the right-sized blocks, padded, and then encrypted into the same number of cipher blocks. Once these blocks are sent over ...
43 views

### Dangers of using CTR mode for encryption

I know that it is never suggested to use the same key or key/IV pair twice for a stream cipher or for a block cipher operating in CTR mode. Filesystem-level encryption reuses the same key for a file ...
37 views

### How to deal with different setup in Multikey FHE?

The scenario : using a Multikey FHE scheme, let's say LTV-FHE scheme, parties delegate the computation of some function to the mighty cloud. In LTV-FHE scheme the parties generate their keys and ...
102 views

### Is $f(f(x))$ a one way function?

I found from a book the following proof. Although I understand the initial construction, I don't understand the last sentence that proves the statement. Why $f(f(x))$, in the paper $h(h(x))$, is ...
79 views

### Can RSA with padding detect all errors in ciphertext?

I'm new in cryptography and there are a couple of things that i'm not sure if i understand correctly. First, when using padding (PKCS or OAEP), if the chiphertext has errors in transmission we'll we ...
90 views

### Diffie-Hellman key size to symmetric formula?

I've noticed that on every site I checked I kept finding the relationship between D-H key size and symmetric encryption equivalent as a table, like: 384 - 56 768 - 80 1792 - 112 2304 - 128 10753 ...
93 views

### MAC algorithm difficulties

Can anyone explain to me why this is a bad idea? I cannot see anything wrong with it except that key K should be different for MAC and AES. MAC algorithm consists of letting the MAC of message M ...