# All Questions

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### Is there a theoretical maximum useful keysize given the block-size?

Consider a block-cipher $F$ with a $N$-bit block-size and a $M$-bit key-size. That is, if $k$ is a $M$-bit key, $p$ is a $N$-bit block of plain-text and $c$ is a $N$-bit block of cipher-text, then: ...
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### Is there a password hash function with a human component?

Sort of Related: Is there a cryptographic hash function that can be performed with pencil and paper? One problem with hashing passwords is that the attacker has more of everything it seems. More ...
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### Store hashed password using Digest authentication

Digest Authentication is something like this: Server sends client a nonce. Client hashes username and password with nonce. Client sends hashed value back to server. Server validates hash. However, ...
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### Is there a kind of OS entropy pool on Windows systems? [closed]

I am wondering if Windows provides an equivalent of /dev/urandom from linux ? Or any kind of system entropy pool ?
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### Is there any existing cipher capable of scaling from a 1 bit key up to a one-time-pad?

We have ciphers that handle small amounts of entropy, such as a 256 bit key for AES; and we have one time pads for enciphering 1:1 entropy, such as a 1GB key for a 1GB file if you could ever harvest ...
588 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 ...
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### mode of operation in cryptography

We need to choose a mode of operation for a Telnet like application where the average message size is between 7 and 1024 bytes. What is the best mode of operation in this case? a. CBC b. CFB c. ...
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### Algorithms for Cyrillic encryption

I am working on a cryptography application which is to be used in my country. I tried looking up to see if there are any algorithms that support the Cyrillic alphabet, but I found none. Do you know of ...
1k views

### Does knowing common prefixes help crack blowfish?

I have strings that are if the form: {static data}{changing data} The beginning static data part is around 20 characters and is common to all strings. The last ...
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### Why is factoring $p-1$ easy when $p$ is a safe prime?

A paper states: [...] $(p,g,y)$ is a correct ElGamal public key if $g^x=y\pmod p$. To verify this the order of $g$, and thus the factorization of $p-1$, is needed. This is easy for safe primes ...
217 views

### zendo data size restrictions

zendo is a new mobile phone app which encrypts messages using a one-time pad: http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/one-time-pads-ride-again/ users have to meet in person and exchange a key via a qr ...
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### Brute-force attacking One Time Pads feasible?

I have a ciphertext encoded with One Time Pad. I do not know the key. How can I find the possible keys which when decoded, will result in a meaningful plain text?
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### How secure would this code be against cryptanalysis?

Simple version: Create software that takes a database of the dictionary, alphabet, and phrases. Randomly generate a database of random strings of letters/numbers/symbols of varying length. Randomly ...
691 views

### Padding of Original Message in MD5

what should I do if my original message is greater than 64 bits? what is the process of padding in MD5? As described in Internet Security: Cryptographic Principles, Algorithms and Protocols, page ...
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### Why can't you decrypt an encrypted message with just the public key? [duplicate]

How does asymmetric crypto work? For example, if you use PGP in emails, you generate a private key that is known only to you and a public key, which is available to everyone. Is there a simple way ...
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### Why are these techniques not feasible to crack RSA?

For $d = e^{-1} \mod \phi(n)$ $$d\cdot e \operatorname{mod} \phi(n)=1$$ $$d = (e^{-1} \operatorname{mod} \phi(n))$$ With having $e$ and $n$, we can calculate the value of $d$ , the private key for ...
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### Is there a way to break this encryption?

I was wondering about making up a simple system to encrypt a file: ...
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### How hard to solve the given mod problem

Let c = a.b mod p where p is n bit prime number (e.g. 128 or 160 bit prime number); a - random number between 1 and (p-1); b - random number between 1 and (p-1); Given c, a and p, how hard to ...
1k views

### Security of very simple XOR with random? [duplicate]

I am currently trying to implement a very fast and simple encryption algorithm in Lua for the purpose of using it with ComputerCraft. The main problem is that bitwise operations in Lua (5.2 at least) ...
2k views

### RSA PCKS1 v2.1 RSAES-OAEP algorithm

Using RSA public key (n,e) the encryption of a message is c= (m^e) mod n and the corresponding message is decrypted as ...
2k views

### Is AES really used for Top Secret stuff?

I've read almost everywhere that AES-256 can be used for Top Secret material (in the US). Is it really used or is it some kind of decoy to hide the more advanced algorithm they might use ?
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### When is a cipher considered broken?

We've all read how some people claim AES is broken because there was supposedly a way to get the plain text from a cipher text faster than brute-force. But is this the definition? Is a cipher broken ...
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### What block cipher is used for CBC-MAC?

What block cipher is used for CBC-MAC? DES, AES, 3DES? Or it doesn't matter?
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### Could Riemann hypothesis solve certainly RSA?

I don't have the background for dealing with Riemann hypothesis but is well known that covers the prime distribution below a specified number. In order to solve the RSA problem you have to factor the ...
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### Why don’t all AES encryption tools produce the same key from the same password?

Alice and Bob meet regularly. They have agreed face-to-face a 128 bit password which they want use to encrypt/decrypt emails written between them. They decide to use 256-bit AES. Alice wrote her ...
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### Is the hash function defined in this exercise collision-resistant?

I have this problem: "Let ${\rm Enc}_k(m)$ a safe block encryption system. We define a hash function $H(m)$ as follows: $m$ will be concatenated with $0$ until $|m|$ is a multiple of ...
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### Is it safe to encrypt data by simply randomizing chunks based on a permutation?

Say I want to encrypt the following text: "Today is March the 22nd, 2015". And say want to encrypt 8-byte blocks of data using the following permutation [6,3,0,1,5,7,2,4] to swap characters at those ...
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### Is there any definition for “generic attack” in context of cryptography or more specific “hash functions”?

I'm searching a definition of "generic attack" in context of cryptography or more specific in context of "hash functions". I searched some books and the web but I did not found any definition for it ...
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### Implementing a web app where the server cannot decrypt its own data?

I'm a cryptography novice, but I think that the world needs to move towards an "encrypt everything" mentality as much as possible. As a result, I've been thinking a lot about ways to build a web app ...
2k views

### Random Number Generator based on AES CTR

I've just about done tinkering with an open source DRBG, and I sure would appreciate a bit of advice from this community. Here's the link to the project, hosted at codeproject.com. It is written in ...
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### Why is ElGamalEngine in bouncy castle restricting input data to be less than the length of the group parameter p?

I am currently using the ElGamalEngine of bouncy castle to implement exponential ElGamal for the purpose of making ElGamal additively homomorphic. To do this i raise the message to be encrypted to the ...
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### Why is DDH not hard over $\mathbb{Z}^*_p$?

Why is Diffie-Hellman key exchange not hard over $\mathbb{Z}^{*}_p$?
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### In RSA. Why is $\phi(n)$ kept secret and $n$ is public?

I mean, $n$ can also be easily used to find the factors $p$ and $q$ right?
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### Is the complexity of Pollard rho for discrete logartihm really the modulus?

so I'm reading everywhere that the Pollard Rho for Dlog's complexity of $g^a \pmod{n}$ is $\mathcal O(\sqrt{n})$. Shouldn't it be $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{q})$ with $q$ the order of $g$?
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### DIY over-encryption with a related key

I know next to nothing about cryptography, which is bad because I'm a programmer. I was exploring some code the other day and the encryption part of it seemed a little strange to me. I'd like the ...
120 views

### How to determine RSA block size for decryption

A message coded with RSA is broken up into blocks, then padded/transformed prior to encryption via modular exponentiation with the public key. However, the encryption result for each block is not ...
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### Password in first line of file for AES-256 encryption

I'm using openssl with aes-256-cbc encryption to encrypt a file. The password is on the first line of the file and the ...
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### ciphertext packing for bandwidth optimization

Lets say $Alice$ needs to send ciphertext $c_b = enc(m_b,k_b)$ to $Bob$ and ciphertext $c_c = enc(m_c,k_c)$ to $Carol$, for both the ciphertexts notice that underlying plaintexts are different (i.e. ...
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### Asymmetric encryption that is secure for (almost) any foreseeable future

Recently, I've been reading a couple of papers about building cryptosystems that are secure for up to 30 years. But for some applications, this seems a bit low to me. So I am wondering if considering ...
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### Removing “security by obscurity” from port knocking

Every article about port knocking, for instance https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Port_Knocking , declares this method as security by obscurity. Is the following enough to remove that title; a ...
223 views

### Will SHA1 or Other Hash Functions Ever Contain Quotes [closed]

I feel foolish asking this, but will the hash generated by SHA-1 or other encryption methods ever have the possibility of containing a quote? Or any other characters that may be escaped such as ", ', ...
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### AES ECB experiment

Generally speaking, ECB mode shouldn't be used. ECB seems to be more of a basic building block than anything else. Because I thought it would be interesting to experiment with encryption (this method ...
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### What prime lengths are used for RSA?

Let's assume we have an RSA 2048 that was produced by two primes multiplication. What is the digit's difference in those 2 factors? For example one prime is 1024 digits and second one 1024 or, one is ...
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### Why does the DES crypto algorithm NOT use 2 rounds?

Now, if we were to go round by round, you could give a distinct reason for not using a single round since after just one round, the right half of the text comes directly, as-is, to form the left half ...
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### Factors of RSA modulus

In the article A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems, the original RSA article, it is mentioned that Miller has shown that n (the modulus) can be factored using any ...
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### Are all block ciphers FPE (format preserving encryption)?

A FPE preserves the format. There is a correspondence between the format of the ciphertext and the plaintext. Given that a message in some binary enconded format can easily be divded in some ...
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### Pi Message Encryption [duplicate]

I created a simple yet efficient message encrypting page that will encrypt messages using Pi. Though not being an expert in this area, I am nowhere near sure how secure this is and how easy it would ...
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### Convert SpookyHash to semi-secure 192bit hash [closed]

What do you think of converting SpookyHash into semi-secure 192bit hash function by this way: increase security by using 8 * 8byte = 512bit blocks instead of 8 * 12byte blocks, but remaining 8 * ...
### Encryption of a number with RSA bigger than $n$
I'm having trouble understanding why encrypting a number $m$, which is larger than $n=p\cdot q$. I've looked into the following threads: Why RSA can't handle numbers above 76? Why does plain RSA ...