# All Questions

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### Certificate Revocation List [migrated]

There are many fields on a certificate revocation list (CRL) like Algorithm, Parameters, Issuer Name, This update date, Next update date, user certificate serial #, etc. While I understand the purpose ...
118 views

### How to select $g$ in Paillier Cryptosystem

For my cryptography class project in university I have selected Paillier Cryptosystem as a course project ...
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### does re-encrypting the same value with multiple keys reduce security

I found myself wondering today, how much security is lost if you take a plaintext - assume that its content, including any metadata is unknown to an attacker, for example it may be random data - and ...
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### In Pedersen Key Distribution, can the public key be persistent?

I am implementing a key distribution protocol described by Torben Pedersen in A Threshold Cryptosystem without a Trusted Party (EUROCRYPT'91). In the protocol, the $n$ parties distribute a public key ...
133 views

### Homomorphic Encryption and Semantic Security using Lattices?

I've been reading Brakerski and Vaikuntanathan's "Efficient Fully Homomorphic Encryption from (Standard) LWE" and I'm still digesting pieces at a time. Under section 1.1, "Re-Linearization: Somewhat ...
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### How to make sure the pre-agreed information safe for DH-Key Exchange

The definition of DH key exchange was given as the method let two authenticate each other & exchange the crypto key over an insecure channel. DH-key-exchange was innovated to defence ...
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### How to understand authenticator working process [on hold]

Now days authenticator are used widely, however as a beginner to cryptography, I'm confused on the mechanism of key refresh. How it works ? Is that related to DH-key-exchange or the server will change ...
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### Compute in GF(2^8) [duplicate]

(x^4+x+1)/(x^7+x^6+x^3+x^2), where the irreducible polynomial is the one used by AES, P(x)=x^8+x^4+x^3+x+1. I think I need to ...
176 views

### implementing a cryptographic hash with a block cipher [duplicate]

How can a cryptographic hash function be implemented/created using the block cipher? I was wondering if we can use AES in cipher block chaining mode to implement it.
172 views

### PRP, PRF and modular arithmetic

Are there any arithmetic or mathematical functions that can be used as PRPs or PRFs ? Since, Conventional block ciphers like AES are that are proven to be good PRPs are not based on mathematics but ...
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### Why do some block cipher modes of operation only use encryption while others use both encryption and decryption?

In Chapter 6, Question 6.8, of his book “Cryptography and Network Security Principles and Practices”, William Stalling asks: Why do some block cipher modes of operation only use encryption while ...
55 views

### How do they implement MAC in TLS?

I recently read questions about "MAC then Encrypt/Encrypt then MAC" which made me curious about how they actually use the algorithm. MAC only calculated once either case (according to what I read). ...
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### A known-plaintext attack on an LFSR-based stream cipher

I am reading a book about Cryptography, and I am stuck in a question. I am really trying to solve it for weeks. But I think the problem is I couldn't understand the whole picture. The question was ...
1k views

### Simply put, what does perfect secrecy means?

I would like to ask for a clear (but maybe not so deep) explanation of what the term "perfect secrecy" means. As far as I have researched and understood, it has to do with probabilities of assuming ...
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### Perfect Forward Secrecy in TLS

I read that TLS does PFS using Diffie Hellman. However, DH can be used even without certificates - so how is DHE-RSA better than plain DHE? Is DHE a insecure algorithm, that DHE-RSA is needed?
123 views

### Given a message and signature, find a public key that makes the signature valid (ECDSA)

This question is a variant on Given a message and signature, find a public key that makes the signature valid, which discusses the analogous question for RSA. It was suggested to me by this post over ...
228 views

### How secure is the knapsack?

Can the knapsack be used in cryptography in a secure sense (described below)? Knapsack problem: Given some number $X$ and a set $W$ of weights $w_1, w_2, ... w_n$, find a subset $S$ of $W$ (if it ...
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### Why should a signature use PSS padding in RSA?

Suppose I send a message using AES (private keys already negotiated securely) and I send a hash of this message using RSA (encrypted with private key) with OAEP to verify the authenticity and ...
158 views

### Is there an algorithm to check if an elliptic curve is secure?

As I understand it elliptic curves are of the form $y^2 = x^3 + ax + b$ Where $a$ and $b$ are the curve parameters. However not all parameters will give a curve suitable for crypto purposes. Is there ...
138 views

### Generate a new public/private key pair for each new message?

When using PGP type public encrypted communication, would it be a good idea to generate a new public for each message and attach that in the new public key in the reply to back to sender mail body? ...
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### Basic Encryption Tests [closed]

For study purposes I have created a block cipher as a bit of fun. Everything appears to be working really well to me, but what steps are normally taken in investigating whether an encryption algorithm ...
2k views

### What is difference between PRG, PRF, and PRP

Until what I have gotten is: A PRG is generator is a part of PRF that produces pseudo-random values for the function. PRF is semantically secure and has no worries of being invertible. Fine, then ...
43 views

### Showing that security of a elgamal invariant is insecure

Original Elgamal signature is defined $S(m, \alpha) = (r, s)$, where $$r = g^k \bmod p$$ $$s = (m – r*α)k^{-1} \bmod (p – 1)$$ more information on Elgamal signature can be found here. Variant ...
76 views

### Difference between plain AES CTR and “CCM-style” CTR

I am trying to adapt the following function from SJCL, which does "AES-CCM" style CTR encryption, to do "pure CTR" encryption. I am playing around with SIV and would rather use this well-reviewed ...
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### cryptography and use of python programming language [closed]

why is it recommended to write cryptography programs ,for example crypt-analysis projects with python programming language? what is the advantages of python? why not use c or any other language?
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### Open SSL signatures - merkle ecdsa rsa [closed]

I want to sign/verify a file over open ssl using these three algorithms. Is there a way to measure the time?
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### How to keep phi(n) secret in RSA?

As we know, RSA cryptosystem have both private key(a,p,q) and public key(b,n), by chinese remainder theorem and fermat's little theorem, we know that the importance of keep p and q secret, and from ...
120 views

### How do I express each element in a field F as a power of a primitive element?

I have a field $\mathbb F_{2^4}$, and it is represented as a residue ring of the polynomials over $\mathbb F_2$ modulo the polynomial $\beta^4 + \beta^3 + \beta^2 + \beta + 1$. I want to express ...
155 views

### Why does this square root algorithm work?

I've been doing some elliptic curve cryptography, and a library I'm using has this slightly bizarre algorithm for computing modular square roots: Let $x$ be some quadratic residue modulo $p$ for some ...
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### How we transfer 128bits cipher to a 4x4 matrix for AES input?

Why the input cipher for AES encryption, can write in 4x4 matrix with 8 bits entires, and can said is 128bits? if each cell is 8bits in binary, how we said this matrix is represent 128bits?
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### What is the asymptotic complexity of RSA and paillier cryptosystem algorithm? [closed]

I want to know the complexity of the RSA and paillier cryptosystem algorithm in asymptotic notation.
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### Threshold signatures vs. certificate authority+voting verification

Perhaps a silly question, but I am wondering what the advantages are of threshold signatures. Let's consider the following two signature schemes: $(t,n)$-threshold signature with a trusted dealer, ...
59 views

### After heartbleed, how can you safely distribute new certs? [migrated]

It's been a while since I studied key distribution, so I may have some fundamental misunderstanding.. From what I remember, man in the middle attacks can't occur during cert distribution because the ...
96 views

### Are RSA or ECC vulnerable to an attack where the same (unknown) plaintext is encrypted with multiple public keys?

I'm not sure what this attack model is called - it's not known-plaintext and also not quite cipher-text-only. It is similar to this question except the general case (not just two keys) and using keys ...
80 views

### Security of this deterministic encryption scheme

I recently came across a library that promises to do deterministic encryption with the following scheme: AES with 256 bit key in CBC mode with PKCS7 padding and Synthetic Initialization vector ...
1k views

### Could RDRAND (Intel) compromise entropy?

I was recently discussing the issue of RDRAND in Intel chips and the whole issue about how NSA could potentially be influencing Intel to weaken or create backdoors in their design. This petition was ...
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### Index of coincidence for completely random text over k alphabets

I'm confused about /Friedman's method 2 (using a table with column of k size of key, and n/k rows, n is the total size for cipher text) m = ...
291 views

### Why does Fortuna (RNG) require entropy sources to specify accumulator pool?

Re-reading my copy of Cryptography Engineering for the holidays, I was struck by the following question about the Fortuna RNG: Why require an entropy source specify which pool a random event should ...
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### Why are Fortuna entropy pools reset after a reseed?

I've implemented LibTomCrypt's version of fortuna and am wondering about the pool resetting after a reseed. In fortuna.c in libtomcrypt we have the following (which is that part that adds the entropy ...
1k views

### What are some disadvantages of homomorphic encryption schemes?

I'm doing some self-teaching / research for my own benefit in homomorphic cryptography. I've studied both additive and multiplicative schemes (Pallier and RSA respectively), but all I can seem to ...
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### Rotation table for 8 round DES

I'm trying to implement DES from scratch using the NIST paper and the Wikipedia article on DES. I got 16 round DES done, but I can't seem to get 8 round DES working. I figure it's because I got the ...
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### An example of Knapsack Cryptosystem cracks/attacks?

I have been studying papers on various ways to crack the knapsack cryptosystem, unfortunately the mathematics in these papers involves lattices and LLL which is over my head. The paper "New Attacks ...