# All Questions

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### Is it possible to actually verify a “sponge function” security claim?

When using a “sponge function” to create a cryptographic hash, we can look at the flat sponge claim, which flattens the claimed success probabilities of all attacks using a single parameter: the ...
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### How can I tell which curve a given ECDSA implementation uses? (P-521 or something else)

I'd like to test and see if certain software uses P-521 ECC curves, or if it uses another variant. Without having access to the sourcecode, or the specification, is there any way for me to test which ...
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### Polynomial multiplication and division in2^128

I want to multiply and divide polynomials, and implement the extended Euclidean algorithm for polynomial greatest common divisors, over a Galois Field of size $2^{128}$. Moreover, I want to use the ...
113 views

### Secure Sketch Construction

I would like a user to choose a point on an image which is represented by (x,y). This is meant to be a security token. When a user uses this location to login they are unlikely to to choose the exact ...
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### How was 256-bit WEP cracked as well?

WEP is now considered as insecure. But how about the 256-bit WEP? Could someone explain why a 256-bit encryption isn't enough? 'A 256-bit WEP system is available from some vendors. As with the other ...
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### AES: keylength and password length? [closed]

What is the difference between the keylength and the length of a password for AES-256?
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Why do people say that using hash twice or more is bad? yes there is key derivation that do that job, but in a low bandwidth network countries, the solution i see is to use a simple hashing system on ...
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### Is this an acceptable authenticated encryption?

After much deliberation, I've decided to use a normal Encrypt-then-MAC scheme instead of an authenticated encryption mode such as GCM as authenticated encryption primitive. This is due to the lack of ...
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### What is meant by $\tilde\Omega(\lambda^4)$?

I'm currently reading the paper (Leveled) fully homomorphic encryption without bootstrapping , and the following paragraph was near the start: What is meant by the symbol used? Is it merely to ...
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### How difficult is it to find the “pre-image” of a block cipher?

Say that I have $$C_1 = AES_{k_1}(M_1)$$ How difficult would it be to find a key, K2 and plaintext M2 $$C_2 = AES_{k_2}(M_2)$$ such that $$C_1 == C_2$$ How would using a block cipher ...
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### Using same AES-GCM setup for multiple packets?

Most cryptographic libraries I've encountered uses some variant of processPlaintext(...) and then doFinal() to produce the ...
238 views

### Parallel-resistant proof-of-work scheme?

I am looking for a proof-of-work scheme which cannot be effectively parallelized. For example, in hashcash (and by extension bitcoin) you have some collision-resistant hash function $f()$, a target ...
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### Is generating public key inevitably slow in classic Diffie-Hellman if the private key is large?

Let's say I pick a 3000+ bit prime $p$ for which I also know that $q = (p - 1) / 2$ is a prime. If I've understood correct, then I can pick pretty much any $g$. Is generating $g^x$ now inevitably ...
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### Hash function from narrower block cipher operated in CBC-encryption mode?

I am trying to build a public hash function (thus collision-resistant and preimage-resistant, and more generally behaving like a random oracle), with input a message $M$ of fixed size $|M|=m\cdot b$ ...
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### Jumblar: Using map locations as passwords

I had the idea of converting map locations into passwords. Basically Jumblar takes a hash of the user's location and stores this as a comment on the PGP network. The 'stored-hash'(Vague-Hash) ...
468 views

### Is it possible to generate a 6-digit number using 256-bit encryption?

Reading through some documentation on a piece of software, it claims that a 4-6 digit number is created using a 256-bit encryption process for the purposes of access control. The whole process works ...
192 views

### repeated use of HKDF-extract on the same PRK

Regarding HKDF (RFC 5869) - HKDF has two steps, extract and expand. Some answers on this site suggest that you can extract once, and then generate multiple keys from the resulting PRK by multiple ...
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### Why do fully homo-morphic constructions use 'ring' or 'lattice' structures?

Is there a significantly advantage to these data structures, or is it simply the status-quo and the easiest to use for describing constructions?
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### Why is asymmetric encryption IND-CPA?

According to Wikipedia, the IND-CPA game is: The challenger generates a key pair PK, SK based on some security parameter k (e.g., a key size in bits), and publishes PK to the adversary. The ...
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### Send a message to an entire group of recipients

I'm attempting to send a message to a group of recipients, through an untrusted intermediary. Each of the recipients will have been invited to the group by someone who already has a trusted public ...
142 views

### using random encrypted RSA challenge as key material

Assume a simple protocol for authentication - one side sends a randomly generated challenge string and encrypts it with RSA. The receiver decrypts it and replies with a hash of the challenge, proving ...
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### Can CBC-encrypted files be modified in-place?

When changing a (small) part of the plaintext of a CBC-encrypted file, how much of the file will have to be rewritten? My suspicion is that everything after the modified block will have to be ...
504 views

### Physical analogue for MACs

What would be a good analogue with which to describe Message Authentication Codes to a person who has little to no understanding of cryptography? For instance, a vault is a reasonable analogue for ...
236 views

### Why is it said that if we have a duplicate ciphertext block it can leak our information?

I have been recently going through a question: http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/15767/what-do-key-size-and-block-size-mean-in-cryptography and it created in me a series of doubts. Referring ...
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### Length of data to hash for PGP

I have finally managed to verify some simple PGP signed message blocks. However, I discovered that for some reason, my implementation limits me to verifying data that is 9-16 bytes long. no less. no ...
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### Best hash size for hash trees

I want to know if having a 8-byte hash value is better than 16-byte hash value for use within hash trees. My mind tells me that the shorter the hash value, the better. But doesn't a smaller hash ...
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### OpenPGP tag 18/19 description confusion Continuation [closed]

After coming back to try to finish more of my OpenPGP implementation, I refound one of my questions http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6021360/openpgp-tag-18-19-description-confusion that I am still ...
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### IV and Headers inside cipher text

I am a bit confused about the use of IV, and key hash. Is the key hash and IV stored inside the headers of the cipher text? Isn't it a security risk to store this header information? By key hash I ...
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### Review of AES encryption concept for an open source project

i'm working on an opensource project, A generator for static (html/js), password protected photo galleries. The generator AES 256 encrypts many images with the same key in PyCrypto, and decrypt them ...
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### Four-Square cipher and its keyspace

Am I thinking about this correctly? Consider that the keyspace of the Playfair cipher is equivalent to all permutations of the alphabet, e.g. the number of distinct permutations of 25 objects, and ...
238 views

### The probability of finding a limited set of collisions for HMACSHA256

I need some input on the use of HMAC-SHA256 in an open source project, any help appreciated. The problem I'm solving is session fixation. We have a username, for that username we'd like to generate a ...
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### Creating a PKCS#12 file where public key doesn't match the private key

For testing purpose, I want to create a PKCS#12 file in which the private key doesn't match the certificate. Is there any tool which will help me do this? If I use ...