# All Questions

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### Is it possible to construct a secure block cipher of size $2n$ given a secure block cipher of size $n$?

Given, say, the Blowfish block cipher, which is considered secure but only has a 64-bit block size, can we construct a secure block cipher of 128-bit block size? Say we run the key through two KDFs, ...
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### RSA private exponent primality

I know that the public exponent is always a prime, but what about the private exponent? Is it always a prime too?
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### Is there a number of tries after which Hashcash is guaranted to be solved?

Hashcash is a proof-of-work system in which the Sender needs to find $Y$ such as the first (let's say 20) bits of $H(X+Y)$ are zeros where $H$ is a one-way hash function, $X$ is a fixed value and $+$ ...
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### Is AES key length a size of the key or entropy?

While educating my self I'm having hard time to understand what an 128 bit AES key actually means? Is it a key length or entropy? Please explain to me trough following example (assuming AES): ...
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### Problems with using AES Key as IV in CBC-Mode

I'm a pentester and currently analysing a web application which are using some strange encryption scheme. The point is: They encrypt using AES-128, generate a (not cryptographic secure) key and use ...
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### Breaking RSA when some bits of one prime are known

RSA primes are 100 bit. You know first 80 bits of one of the primes. In this system, come up with an efficient way to decrypt the cipher-text. This was the question on my quiz. I'm not sure how to ...
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### What are Cryptographic Multi-linear Maps?

I've encountered this term many times in the fields of Fully-Homomorphic Encryption and Obfuscation. I want to learn those subject and Cryptographic Linear Maps seems to be an obstacle in the way. ...
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### ECDSA vs RSA: Performance on Android platform and surprising results

For our privacy-preserving protocol, an encrypted channel is established. In order to protect our system from man-in-the-middle attacks, signature-based approach is used. After we've implemented it ...
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### What constitutes a “description of B” for probabilistic encryption as defined in Cryptology 6.3.4?

On page 21 of the Rivest's Cryptology chapter, he defines a trapdoor predicate as a boolean function for which it is easy to choose an x such that ...
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### Special random distribution algorithm

I am implementing ring signatures as a part of an authorization system. Since the number of users could get high enough to make computation on end-user devices infeasible, I am thinking of "...
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### Are hash functions chaotic?

I'm looking into "bitcoin like" mining processes. Say a security process uses a hash of data as proof that the data was known at some point in time. From what I understand, hash functions are ...
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### How to solve cipher encrypted with Vigenère + Columnar Transposition?

Vigenère's weakness is Kasiski's test and index of coincidence. However, if you put columnar transposition on top of Vigenère, that weakness is gone. The text is now shuffled and you can't search for ...
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### RSA Key Blinding

I was looking the answer to the following question (Timing attack on modular exponentiation), discussing the Private Key Blinding as a countermeasure for timing attacks. Therefore I'm asking if ...
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### Initialize the eight working variables SHA256

I have a little confusion in understanding explanation of SHA256 by FIPS a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h are being initialized as (this is what i don't understand) 2 . ...
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### Generating unsigned, bounded random value using signed bounded random values

Use case: I have a random number generator that can generate random numbers in a range that is limited by a number $x$, say $x$ ranges from $2$ to $2^{(n - 1)} - 1$ exclusive. In this case $n$ is $16$,...
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### Performance analysis of roaming authentication protocol using pbc library

Recently, I have surveyed a few research papers related to roaming authentication protocol for wireless networks. For example: “Efficient Privacy-Preserving Authentication in Wireless Mobile Networks” ...
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### Is TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA still a secure cipher to use? [duplicate]

I have read numerous times that the RC4 cipher itself is considered broken in TLS. Still many websites are using the TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA configuration even to date. Now, I know that sometimes ...
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### How can the key size be calculated [closed]

If the decrypting key is 448, then what is the key size? Suppose I am encrypting a plain text with a key by choosing some random numbers between ...
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### Does the secret key used in AES have to prime?

I’ve looked around this site and the web quite a bit, but can’t find a definitive answer on whether or not the secret key $k$ used in the AES crypto-system has to be a prime number? Or can you just ...
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### Cryptographically secure keyed rolling hash function

I could not find any mention on the Internet of a proven/known cryptographically secure keyed rolling hash function (ie rolling MAC). Has the question been studied, is it possible to build one ? By ...
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### Point addition and doubling in Ed25519 (ref10)?

I just migrated CodesInChaos' C# port of Ed25519(ref10) to Java, and everything works fine. (I.e. I get the same results for key generation, signature and verification.) Now, I would like to do a ...
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### Symmetry between a public and a private key

I know that the private and public key in assymetric cryptography are different and the public is used for encryption while the private for decryption. My question is if they are symmetrical to each ...
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### Number of keys when using symmetric and asymmetric encryption?

Quoting part of my homework/assignment: How many keys are required for secure communication among 1000 person if: Symmetric key encryption algorithm is used? Asymmetric key encryption ...
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### Cryptodefense ransom use RSA-2048. Any chance with known plaintext attack? [duplicate]

The "new" kind of ransomware invade your computer and crypt all your files using the RSA-2048. Personally, I have been victim of cryptodefense: 40000 files encrypted... I'm not going to pay anything ...
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### Predicting Google Authenticator OTP Codes [closed]

I use Google Authenticator to generate OTP codes for logging in. As you know, the numbers change every 30 seconds or so, and (AFAIK) use an RSA key to generate those numbers. If someone were to ...
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### When is it safe to not use authenticated encryption?

I have read the post Why should I use Authenticated Encryption instead of just encryption? When is it safe to not use authenticated encryption? I assumed hard drive volume encryption or per file ...
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### In the STS Authentication Protocol, why are the signatures encrypted?

From Wikipedia: (1) Alice → Bob : g^x (2) Alice ← Bob : g^y, E_K(S_B(g^y, g^x)) (3) Alice → Bob : E_K(S_A(g^x, g^y)) I know there should be something I'm missing,...