All Questions

902 views

How does a key wrapping like RFC 3394 secure my cryptographic keys?

So I'm messing around in the BouncyCastle library with the RFC 3394 AES Key Wrap engine and I'm trying to understand the benefit of it. The problem I'm running into is how to store keys securely on a ...
302 views

Why would you expect to find a collision in a hash function after approximately $\sqrt{n}$ hashes?

I can't get an intuitive understanding of why it's $2^{(\frac{n}{2})}$ and not $2^n$, where $n$ is the number of bits of which the key consists.
4k views

Why can't one implement bcrypt in Cuda?

I had heard that although it's easy to implement message digest functions like MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 etc. in CUDA (or any other GPU platform), it is impossible to implement bcrypt there. bcrypt is ...
399 views

Can one efficiently iterate valid bcrypt hash output values?

bcrypt is an intentionally slow hash algorithm. In my last protocol idea, I wanted to use it to expand a password and then only transfer the bcrypt-hashed password. An efficient attack on this would ...
3k views

Encrypted text length in AES

I have created an application that will be able to read any file and encrypt it using AES Encryption. For efficiency, I am reading a block of data, encrypting it and so on. So for decrypting, I just ...
668 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? ...
947 views

What is a hard-core predicate?

I read this article on Wikipedia: Hard-core predicate. Still I don't understand what exactly is a hard-core predicate. Is it possible to put this in simple English terminology, and perhaps with a ...
514 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 ...
3k views

420 views

What algorithm does PGP use to encrypt email?

I know it uses RSA/DSA to create keys, but does it use that same algorithm for the actual cipher?
351 views

How can two different passphrases unlock the same content?

I have heard that in enterprises it is common that the IT admin has a master passphrase that can unlock any content that an employee encrypts. It would be temping to think, that the IT admin's ...
175 views

Are more complex algorithms easier to break with timing attacks?

Is there a point where increasing the complexity of an encryption algorithm will make it easier to break using a timing attack? Or is there no connection here at all?
23k views

How can I generate large prime numbers for RSA?

What is the currently industry-standard algorithm used to generate large prime numbers to be used in RSA encryption? I'm aware that I can find any number of articles on the Internet that explain how ...
292 views

How can I store confident data with OpenID?

I want to make a system that needs to store some confident user information in a database. I intend on using OpenID for user authentication. I would like encrypt the data in a way that it can only be ...
9k views

AES in ECB mode weakness

In a project that I'm currently working on, we are encrypting some data using AES with ECB mode in a database. Each piece of data being encrypted is very small, no more than 10 characters long. Very ...
3k views

How can a random salt for a hash function work in practice?

I understand the theory behind the use salts in hash functions, but when I see it implemented, the implementations always generate the salt on the fly and the salt appears to be different for every ...
3k views

How were the DES S-box values determined?

It seems like the S-boxes in DES have essentially random values. How were these chosen?
494 views

Key Length & Hashing

I need to use a hash function to generate a 128-bit key for a symmetric cipher. The specific cipher is from the eStream portofolio, called Rabbit. I am using the SRP protocol for authentication (a ...
3k views

Does the generator size matter in Diffie-Hellman?

For the Diffie-Hellman protocol I've heard that the generator 3 is as safe as any other generator. Yet, 32-bit or 256-bit exponents are sometimes used as generators. What is the benefit of using ...
7k views

RIPEMD versus SHA-x, what are the main pros and cons?

RIPEMD is a family of cryptographic hash functions, meaning it competes for roughly the same uses as MD5, SHA-1 & SHA-256 do. The Wikipedia page for RIPEMD seems to have some nice things to say ...
299 views

Are there reference implementations of ECQV implicit certificates?

I am interested in exploring ECC implicit certificates, specifically using the ECQV protocol. While the actual implementation would not difficult to perform using building blocks provided by most ECC ...
4k views

Why has the RSA factoring challenge been withdrawn?

Wikipedia states that RSA challenge has been withdrawn. Does it mean that an efficient factoring algorithm is "just around the corner"? or are there some other reasons? If the challenge was still ...
5k views

What is the “Random Oracle Model” and why is it controversial?

What is the "Random Oracle Model"? Is it an "assumption" akin to the hardness of factoring and discrete log? Or something else? And why do some researchers have a strong distrust of this model?
2k views

How well does scrypt perform on different architectures / OSes?

The scrypt algorithm seems to be a prominent feature in the "CPU friendly" Bitcoin clones for the proof-of-labor part. I've heard claims that it's relatively slow on Windows and/or Intel compared to ...
1k views

Encrypt-then-MAC Confidentiality, Integrity and Authenticity

Does Encrypt-then-MAC provide equal confidentiality, integrity and authenticity as other constructs such as EAX? If yes, how do I go about using it? My current understanding is: E = ...
171 views

Generating non-repeating N-bit IVs, which are indistinguishable from randomness

I'm implementing a protocol which needs a 64-bit IV for every encrypted packet. The cipher in use (AES-GCM, more or less as specified in RFC 4106) does not require that these IVs are random, only ...