# All Questions

271 views

### Is there an encyption scheme that combines additive homomorphism with ability to proxy re-encrypt?

Is there an encyption scheme that combines additive homomorphism with ability to proxy re-encrypt? I've tried digging around on the Internet but haven't found anything conclusive on the topic.
392 views

### Why the symmetric key layer in PGP?

I've been familiarizing myself with the basics of PGP. If I understand correctly, PGP symmetrically encrypts the data of interest using a random single-use key, then encrypts the encrypted data and ...
1k views

### What is the difference between a hash and a permutation?

As defined by Wikipedia a hash function is [...] any algorithm or subroutine that maps large data sets of variable length to smaller data sets of a fixed length. For example, a person's name, ...
589 views

### How to best obtain bit sequences from throwing normal dice?

Throwing normal dice, one can get sequences of digits in [0,5]. Which is the best procedure in practice to transform such sequences into bit sequences desired?
3k views

### What is the recommended replacement for MD5?

Since MD5 is broken for purposes of security, what hash should I be using now for secure applications?
971 views

### Is it safer to generate your own Diffie-Hellman primes or to use those defined in RFC 3526?

I was wondering if the prime numbers defined for use with Diffie-Hellman in RFC 3526 are more trustworthy than generating one's own, especially considering the recent Arjen Lenstra paper (Ron was ...
222 views

### Does the position of the salt improve its effectiveness when hashing?

Seems most documentation I have read suggests the salt should prefix the value to be hashed. Is this just for consistency, or is the salt more effective when prefixed?
2k views

### How key materials are generated in SSL V3 from master secret

The generation of key materials is given by ...
225 views

### Changing algorithms during encryption

Inspired by "Guarding against cryptanalytic breakthroughs: combining multiple hash functions", I am curious if there is a cryptographic reason to use only one algorithm during encryption. For ...
2k views

### What alphanumeric string length can be used to guarantee no hash collisions from CRC-64?

If I'm hashing alphanumeric strings (chars in the set 0-9, a-...
355 views

### Why to try get key out of white box crypto? How can one protect WBC itself?

Help me understand the following. With WBC the question is mainly being stated as can one try to break WBC to identify the key. My question is: Why would one ever want to do that anyways? If one can ...
4k views

### How much stronger is RSA-2048 compared to RSA-1024?

How much stronger is RSA-2048 compared to RSA-1024? It is hard to imagine very big numbers. So what would be your way to explain the difference to someone who doesn't know much about cryptography?
625 views

### uniqueness of the RSA public modulus

What is the probability that two separate RSA public moduli are the same? For example, consider a 2048-bit modulus. The number seems to be huge, but the choice for prime factors p and q is much more ...
607 views

### Are there any secure commutative ciphers?

This answer lists two commutative cipher algorithms - Pohlig-Hellman and SRA. However, they don't appear to be too secure. My question is, here there any commutative ciphers out there that are secure ...
610 views

### Is there an authenticated encryption scheme where the recipient can attribute the message to a single sender?

With a standard authenticated encryption scheme (or MAC), Alice and Bob share a symmetric key. When Alice sends something to Bob, Bob can check that it is authentic. At that point, Bob can deduce ...
554 views

### Is there a practical zero-knowledge proof for this special discrete log equation?

We have a multiplicative cyclic group $G$ with generators $g$ and $h$, as in El Gamal. Assume $G$ is a subgroup of $(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z})^*$. There are two parties, Alice and Bob: Alice knows: ...
2k views

### 128 bit hash with least chance of collision

I'm building a storage system for JSON documents where they are looked up on a 128 bit key. These JSON documents have a timestamp within them, but apart from that are user-entered data. These JSON ...
656 views

### If the PSK is known, is it possible to decrypt traffic from other clients in a WPA2 wlan network?

If in a public WLAN WPA2-PSK is used, but the PSK is more or less publicly available, does this mean that an attacker with that PSK can easily decrypt wlan traffic from/to other clients of that WLAN? ...
3k views

### What are the details of the DES weakness of reusing the same IV in CBC mode with the same key?

I think I once faced the recommendation, that the initialization vector should always be random and never be used twice with the same key. How serious is this weakness? Also, is AES less effected ...
203 views

### Secure way to derive separate encryption and MAC keys from a single master key?

I want to derive a 256 bit encryption key and a 256 bit MAC key from a single 256 bit master key for an authenticated encryption scheme. I was considering the following construction to derive the two ...
420 views

### RSA Encryption and Signature - Weak Padding

Assume that I have an plaintext $m$ and it is padded with $randompad||00||m$ and then it is encrypted with RSA and a public encryption key so we get the encrypted $Sm$. Then to assure its integrity ...
433 views

### Security of Pohlig-Hellman exponentation cipher?

I am looking into implementing Pohlig-Hellman exponentation cipher and I would like to know how secure that algorithm is? I am guessing it's security relates greatly to the prime number used in it. ...
306 views

### How is the x coordinate of a “point at infinity” encoded in a Secp256k1 signature?

I'm testing an implementation of Bitcoin, which uses the curve Secp256k1 for ECDSA, and I want to see how it handles the point at infinity ($0$) if present in a signature. For example, r could be the ...
335 views

### Can I use PGP to sign a message without providing cryptographic non-repudation?

The difference between a digital signature and a MAC is non-repudiation. A message with a digital signature proves that only the sender could have signed the message, whereas a message with a MAC ...
2k views

### Do I have to recompute all hashes if I change the work factor in bcrypt?

The well-known article about why we should use bcrypt for hashing passwords mentions the work factor - some parameter to the algorithm that determines how long one hashing should be in terms of number ...
523 views

### Is ECB mode secure if plaintexts guaranteed to be unique?

I've got a scenario where I need to encrypt many small (16-byte) plaintexts. I want to use AES-128 in ECB mode. Notably, each plaintext is guaranteed to be unique, though each may differ by only a few ...
794 views

### What algorithm would give the shortest ciphertext for very short plaintexts?

I have to encrypt some very short messages (approx. 5 characters) and I would like the ciphertext to be as short as possible. I am currently using AES but the initialization vector (IV) is making my ...
2k views

### Brute forcing CRC-32

I'm working on a cryptosystem which uses IDEA. The designer made the mistake of including a CRC-32B hash of the password unencrypted in the header, so that the system can quickly reject bad ...
487 views

### Elliptic Curve Encryption Ciphertext Size

I'd like to know how much bigger is the ciphertext when encrypting a message using ECC encrytpion? ECIES (or ElGamal)
286 views

### Are hash trees an alternative, quantum-resistant signature scheme which can replace RSA?

Can hash trees provide quantum resistant signatures to replace RSA for signing securely? What is the key size and how many times can we use same key?
11k views

### FIPS 140-2 Compliant Algorithms

Is there any reference to check the list of encryption & signing algorithms which are compliant to FIPS 140-2. After an exhaustive search I could find only "AES". Any suggestions would be much ...
609 views

### are CFB and OFB really meant for streaming?

CFB, OFB and other modes are meant for streaming and don't require padding. Are there still limitations such as the text needs to be greater than key length?
277 views

### How is de-synchronisation of HOTP solved?

From RFC 4226 I understand how HOTP generates one-time passwords by incrementing a counter and uses the 'look-ahead' window to try to resynchronise (from this counter), if the user tries a few wrong ...
88 views

### Formal security of recycled random blinding in a Paillier scheme

This question is a follow-up/variant on a previous question. Supposing that we are trying to generate a large number of (indistinguishable) ciphertexts of a given plaintext and want to avoid the ...
232 views

### SSL-like protocol with public-key hard-coded in the client

Imagine a SSL-like protocol that instead of using certificates signed by a trusted CA, has the server's public key hard-coded in the client. My question is: what happens if the server's private key is ...
447 views

### How do TLS 1.1 and 1.2 generate IVs (initialization vectors) for each record?

According to RFC 4346 Explicit IVs [CBCATT] describes a chosen plaintext attack on TLS that depends on knowing the IV for a record. Previous versions of TLS [TLS1.0] used the CBC ...
407 views

### Hide a weakness in ECC by choosing the prime or one of the curve coefficients

Suppose you are given a value $c$. Can you find a prime $p$ and an integer $b$ such that the elliptic curve $$E: y^2 \equiv x^3 -3x + b \pmod p$$ is cryptographically weak? You need to choose ...
898 views

### definition and meaning of semantic security

I'm taking coursera cryptography course. The definition of semantic security is hard to understand. I tried to slightly restate it (the word "efficient" was in the original definition). Do I get it ...
502 views

### Attack on DSA with signatures made with k, k+1, k+2

For homework, I'm asked to find the private key, $x$, in a DSA digital signature scheme. In the particular instance, we are given the parameters $p$, $q$ and $g$, the public key $g^x$, 3 messages ...
462 views

### Decryption a chunk of file with AES

We are having a requirement to store large files (~1GB) encrypted and decrypt them when reading. We are looking to use AES-CTR or AES-GCM mode to encrypt the data. There are scenarios where we want to ...
3k views

### RSA Proof of Correctness

Can anyone provide an extended (and well explained) proof of correctness of the RSA Algorithm? And why is it needed? I can't say that this or this helped me much, I'd like a more detailed and newbie ...
3k views

### How can I convert a DER ECDSA signature to ASN.1?

I having trouble verifying an ECDSA signature signed using client side javascript with Java/BouncyCastle. The javascript signing function source: ...
174 views

### Deriving 2 keys using HKDF

I have an encryption scheme that uses a 256-bit master key, from which 2 separate keys (one for AES-256-CTR encryption and one for a HMAC-SHA256) are derived using HKDF. However, I'm not sure exactly ...
353 views

My question is related to PBKDF2. I am unsure how to validate user entered password with already existing hashes and salts. I have heard of the so called "length-constant" comparison which basically ...
881 views

### Implementing secret reconstruction in Shamir's Secret Sharing

I am trying to implement Shamir's secret sharing in C++. I have got the generation of shares working. However, I am very confused with the reconstruction of shares. I get the part on how three users ...
57 views

### Blum primes [x=3(mod 4)] zero knowledge proof?

Lets say we have 2 primes, $p \equiv q \equiv 3 \pmod{4}$, and we make $n=p \times q$ public. I can, without revealing factors, show that $n$ has two prime factors. How can i zero knowledge prove ...
105 views

### Variant of the Decisional Bilinear Diffie Hellman problem

I am working on a cryptographic scheme and I need to rely on the following problem, which I have nicknamed the "Hybrid Decisional Bilinear Diffie Hellman (hDBDH)" problem: Let \$e: \mathbb G_1 ...
56 views

### Diffie-Hellman on infinite groups

The most common groups to be used as examples for the DH protocol are modular multiplication and elliptic curves. But I've realised that the groups doesn't need to be finite, a suitable infinite group ...