All Questions

7k views

Why does nobody use (or break) the Camellia Cipher?

If Camellia is of equivalent security and speed to AES, concerns arise. First of all, assuming the above, why is Camellia so rarely used in practice? Why aren't there any breaks in Camellia? Does ...
15k views

Why use an Initialization Vector (IV)?

Why use an Initialization Vector (IV)? How are IV's used? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using an IV? Why use an IV instead of a longer key in which some section of the key is pubic? What ...
20k views

Basic explanation of Elliptic Curve Cryptography?

I have been studying Elliptic Curve Cryptography as part of a course based on the book Cryptography and Network Security. The text for provides an excellent theoretical definition of the algorithm but ...
2k views

What security authorities and standards reject $e=3$ in RSA, when, and with what rationale?

In RSA, some security authorities and/or standards allow the public exponent $e=3$, others require or recommend $e>2^{16}$ (or perhaps some other minimum). I gathered the following: PKCS#1 allows ...
2k views

Prevent double-spending with decentralized digital currencies without all transactions being public?

A recent approach to creating a decentralized online currency, called Bitcoin, has been generating some interest. The goal is to have a way to transfer currency without a central authority and without ...
4k 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 ...
12k views

What is the main difference between a key, an IV and a nonce?

What are the main differences between a nonce, a key and an IV? Without any doubt the key should be kept secret. But what about the nonce and the IV? What's the main difference between them and their ...
105k views

How secure is AES-256?

The cipher AES-256 is used among other places in SSL/TLS across the Internet. It's considered among the top ciphers. In theory it's not crackable since the combinations of keys are massive. Although ...
5k views

Is truncating a SHA512 hash to the first 160 bits as secure as using SHA1?

I am from a web development background (I don't know an awful lot about cryptography or how the algorithms themselves work), so I am asking this question in simple terms. Consider a hash of the word ...
3k views

Information leakage from the ecryptfs filesystem

I'm wondering what information might be leaked from the ecryptfs filesystem. This is what Ubuntu uses if you check the box for "encrypted home directory" when using the desktop installer, so is ...
2k views

Is this password migration strategy secure?

I want to upgrade the security of some existing databases of users' authentication tokens strictly for the purpose of making sure that if the database is stolen, attackers will not be able to guess ...
2k views

Signal vs Telegram in terms of protocols?

Some time ago, the question was asked in chat, why MTProto (Telegram's protocol) is supposedly worse than Axolotl (Signal's protocol) as both protocols have been the inventions of their respective ...
43k views

What is safer: ZipCrypto or AES-256?

Like in title: which one of these encryption methods (ZipCrypto, AES-256) is more secure and why? I am asking about it because I'd like to know which should be preferred when compressing files with ...
2k views

How do I apply differential cryptanalysis to a block cipher?

I have read a lot of summaries of block ciphers particularly with regards to the NIST competitions stating that reduced-round block ciphers are – for example – vulnerable to differential ...
3k views

Are checksums essentially non-secure versions of cryptographic hashes?

Are checksums basically toned-down versions of cryptographic hashes? As in: they are supposed to detect errors that occur naturally/randomly as opposed to being designed to prevent a knowledgeable ...
6k views

Is it possible to derive the encryption method from encrypted text?

Is it possible to identify the encryption method, or at least rule out some of them, by looking at the encrypted text? For example, if you have 3 encrypted strings where the first 10 characters are ...
27k views

How does RSA signature verification work?

I understand how the RSA algorithm works for encryption and decryption purposes but I don't get how signing is done. Here's what I (think) I know and is common practice: If I have a message that I ...
11k views

Impacts of not using RSA exponent of 65537

This RFC says the RSA Exponent should be 65537. Why is that number recommended and what are the theoretical and practical impacts & risks of making that number higher or lower? What are the ...
8k views

Why do we use encrypt-decrypt-encrypt (EDE) in 3DES, rather than encrypting three times?

I'm wondering why we use encrypt-decrypt-encrypt (EDE) sequence in 3DES (also known as DES-EDE, TDES or TDEA) with three keys instead of three times encryption (EEE) with three different keys?
16k views

What is the difference between CBC and GCM mode?

I am trying to learn more about GCM mode and how it differs between CBC. I already know that GCM provides a MAC which is used for message authentication. From what I have read, and seen code ...
6k views

Why is OTP not vulnerable to brute-force attacks?

I saw this question on the book Understanding Cryptography. At first glance it seems as though an exhaustive key search is possible against an OTP system. Given is a short message, let’s say 5 ...
4k views

Why can't I reverse a hash to a possible input?

I'm going to provide “proof” why a hash function can be reversed, and I hope you can tell my why I'm wrong So, a hash function can be implemented as a series of logic gates. All logic gates can be ...
2k views

Hash function that allows to decide if A > B if you only have hash(A) and hash(B)?

Is it possible to construct a hash function with the following property? If you have hash(A) and hash(B) with A and B being integers, you can tell if A is greater than B -- without however knowing ...
2k views

Why should I make my cipher public?

As I understand it, the less people know about the internals of my protocol or cipher, the more secure the protocol is. However Kerckhoffs's principle states that A cryptosystem should be secure ...
2k views

Why is PuTTYgen-created RSA public exponent(e) not in {3,17,65537}?

As far as I know, RSA public exponent(e) should be one of {3,17,65537}. However, I found PuTTYgen-created RSA public exponent(e) is 0x25(37) by default,as follows, (PuTTYgen version: 0.66) I am ...
12k views

What is the lowest level of mathematics required in order to understand how encryption algorithms work?

What mathematical fields of knowledge would be required in order to get a good understanding of encryption algorithms? Is it basic algebra, or is there a "higher education" mathematical field ...
4k 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?
7k views

understanding a length extension attack

I have been trying to understand exactly how a length extension attack works on SHA-1. I'll detail below what I've understood so far, so that I can convey my understanding of the same and hopefully ...
13k views

Why is AES resistant to known-plaintext attacks?

At least it's my understanding that AES isn't affected by known-plaintext. Is it immune to such an attack, or just resistant? Does this vary for chosen-plaintext?
5k views

For Diffie-Hellman, must g be a generator?

Due to a number of recently asked questions about Diffie-Hellman, I was thinking this morning: must $g$ in Diffie-Hellman be a generator? Recall the mathematics of Diffie-Hellman: Given public ...
673 views

Necessity of Randomness of Salts?

Given the desire to have unique salts for each user of your system, is it actually necessary to create a cryptographically-random salt for each user? If your system already has some other unique user ...
8k views

What is entropy?

We discuss a lot of topics and use measures of entropy to determine how difficult it is for an attacker to be successful. What does entropy mean in the context of cryptography? How is entropy ...
32k views

How can I use SSL/TLS with Perfect Forward Secrecy?

I'm new to the field of cryptography, but I want to make the web a better web by setting up the sites that I host with Perfect Forward Secrecy. I have a list of questions regarding the setup of ...
774 views

Proof for the SHA3 claim that 256 bit security is “post-quantum sufficient”?

On page 14 of "Keccak and the SHA-3 Standardization" (February 6, 2013) it says: Instantiation of a sponge function the permutation KECCAK-f 7 permutations: b → ...
5k 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 ...
1k views

Selective format-compliant JPEG encryption?

I am working towards building a format-compliant encryption system for pictures. The aim of it is to be able to obscure specific areas of a picture (i.e. faces, car license numbers...) while keeping ...
2k views

Is it feasible to build an index of prime factors?

Would it be possible to break an RSA key, in for example 1 week of time, if the cracker have already spent X number of years building an index of primes by performing every permutation of existing ...
4k 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 ...
1k views

Purpose of outer key in HMAC

From what I know, the HMAC constructions has two strength: It's resistant to length extensions Since the key is consumed before the message, the attacker does not know the initial state, preventing ...
2k views

How to fairly select a random number for a game without trusting a third party?

Several people are playing a game with random events and require a way to produce a random number. (Such as dice rolls or a lottery.) Can this be done such that each player has the power to be ...
6k views

Current mathematics theory used in cryptography/coding theory

What are the mainstream techniques borrowed from algebraic geometry (or some other branch of mathematics) which are currently used in cryptography/coding theory? I've only heard about a small subset ...
18k views

What are the advantages of TOTP over HOTP?

HMAC-based One Time Password (HOTP) was published as an informational IETF RFC 4226 in December 2005. In May, 2011, Time-based One-time Password Algorithm (TOTP) officially became RFC 6238. What ...
4k views

How do we know a cryptographic primitive won't fail suddenly?

It took more than a decade from when MD5 looked like it was going to break to the point when it was actually broken. That's more than a decade of warning. How can we be sure that when our ...
360 views

I'm wondering if there have been any recent advances (say, the past 5-10 years) in human usability for cryptography and/or authentication? By that I mean something that makes it easier for an ...
2k views

With sufficient randomness, is XOR an acceptable mechanism for encrypting?

I have heard criticism of various cryptosystems saying that "at their heart, they were just XOR." Is this just ignorance, or is there something inherently wrong with XOR based ciphers?
6k views

What exactly is a negligible (and non-negligible) function?

The mathematical definition of neglible and non-neglible functions is fairly clear-cut, but why they are important and how they are used in cryptography?
2k views

Blum Blum Shub vs. AES-CTR or other CSPRNGs

Following on from D.W.'s comments on a previous question, what properties does Blum Blum Shub have that make it better / worse than other PRNGs? Are there significant implementation difficulties or ...
16k views

Recommended skills for a job in cryptology [closed]

First let me apologize if this is an ill posed question. Let me also note that I do not in any way seek a comprehensive answer, simply your thoughts on what makes for a valuable asset to a company ...