# All Questions

1k views

### Hash function based on pseudorandom functions and security

Are there hash functions that make use of pseudorandom functions. Precisely, I'm looking for a specification of a hash function based on PRF (and based on the security of such a primitive).
183 views

### Defence against timing attacks

I know this is a difficult subject but would a good defense against timing attacks be not sending a message if the decryption or authentication fails? So if the attacker provides a wrong HMAC for ...
101 views

Are there any algorithms/protocols that let you produce a specific length of random tokens/bits in such a way that you can cryptographically determine which 2 or more tokens/bitstrings where produced ...
260 views

### Symmetric mutual authentication with client using a derived secret

I'm attempting to find a client/server authentication protocol that allows the client and server to authenticate each other when the client doesn't know the server secret but does have a sensitive key ...
194 views

### Requirement for the length of a HMAC tag?

I've seen NIST requirements about key length. What about the output lengths ? Is 112 bits enough for the HMAC output length ? Can we truncate the tag to keep only 112 bits ? Thank you
314 views

### How to prove Security of Onion Layers of encryption?

CryptDB has Onion layers of Encryption to provide wider functionality from weaker forms of encryption. How do we prove such things are indeed secure ? Intuitively It seems ok. Are there any parallels ...
430 views

### Attack an stream cypher using 2 XORed LFSRs

We know that the Key were generated by 2 16Bit LFSRs (output of both is XORed together -> key) I already extracted a 64 Bit key sequence, but how can I calculate the polynom of the LFSRs (and the ...
694 views

### Reuse of a DH / ECDH public key

I was wondering whether it is safe to use the same DH or ECDH key pair in more than one key agreement, particularly if these public keys are in a public registry. These public keys could be used by ...
612 views

### How many oracle calls to break an affine cipher in a chosen plaintext attack?

Assuming the ability to launch Chosen Plaintext Attacks (CPA), how many oracle calls does an attacker need to break the affine cipher? How does it work?
157 views

### 1024 RSA Hash Signature attack. Forge a valid signature

I have an RSA signature of 1024 bit where i know the following: Public modulus N Public exponent (0x03) Cypher message Summary: An MD5 hash is calculated from a collection of byte and is used as ...
666 views

### Understanding multiplication in the AES specification

I am reading through the AES specification and am not able to wrap my head around the multiplication definition (section 4.2). Sorry to refer to a spec but AES is the holy grail in crypto so I hope ...
1k views

### How to implement order preserving encryption or order preserving hashing [closed]

Does anybody know any free implementation of either order preserving encryption or order preserving hashing? I've found some codes like CMPH but I need to dynamically add new DATA and that's why most ...
81 views

### What is the benefit of applying the tweak a second time using XTS?

I tried to understand the inner working of XTS. What I understood is that it is applying the tweak two times: once on the plaintext and once on the output. What is the benefit of applying the tweak ...
296 views

### what is it called when encrypt('a') + encrypt('a') == encrypt('aa')?

So normally if you do encrypt('a') twice in a row you'll get the same result. But sometimes (as is the case in SSH) this is not desirable. You want encrypt('a') + encrypt('a') == encrypt('aa'). What ...
146 views

### Simple example to describe Bilinear mapping

Notation : $\mathbb{G}$ is an additive group and $\mathbb{G}_T$ is multiplicative group of prime order $q$. Bilinear mapping $e: \mathbb{G} \times \mathbb{G} \rightarrow \mathbb{G}_T$ has to satisfy ...
12k views

### Decrypt files with original file CTB-Locker [closed]

I have problem called CTB-Locker. It encrypted all of my files on computer and since I have lot of documents that are very important I am in problems! As I read online CTB-Locker uses "elliptical ...
3k views

### How can I find the prime numbers used in RSA?

I got this question in a local hacking event, but I couldn't solve it. Problem Statement ---- Continuing their snooping habit, NSA kept bugging Alice's communication. Resorting to the age old ...
1k views

### Does composing multiple substitution ciphers improve security?

Will using two substitution ciphers one after the another be more secure than using single substitution cipher?
451 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

### Why initialize SHA1 with specific buffer?

SHA-1 is initialize with a specific buffer: h0 = 0x67452301 h1 = 0xEFCDAB89 h2 = 0x98BADCFE h3 = 0x10325476 h4 = 0xC3D2E1F0? Why?
544 views

### Does Curve25519 only provide 112 bit security?

In a recent mail on the IETF CFRG mailing list it was claimed that: The (currently missing) security considerations (or somewhere) should describe why Curve25519 is ok when used in contexts where ...
8k views

213 views

### Is deniable error-correction possible?

This question came up as I tried to answer an earlier question I asked: cryptographic data structure wanted: sparse array without membership test. I still have not resolved that question to my ...
249 views

### Is there any research on the problem of making a number more memorable to humans?

Authentication protocols often rely on humans dealing with large numbers correctly. For example, when a user logs into a remote machine using SSH for the first time, she is prompted to confirm that ...
2k views

### Why programming languages don't provide simple encryption methods?

In c#, there is a namespace called System.Security.Cryptography and there are many classes in this namespace, which help developers encrypt and decrypt data. ...
243 views

### Is SHA-1 safe for signing ECDHE parameters?

Is using the SHA-1 algorithm insecure for hashing the ephemeral ECDH public key in the signed_params structure? There are some worrying articles about using SHA-1: ...
2k views

### Why should the RSA private exponent have the same size as the modulus?

Consider the generation of an RSA key pair with a given modulus size $n$ and a known, small public exponent $e$ (typically $e = 3$ or $e = 65537$). A common method is to generate two random primes ...
301 views

### Are there cryptographic hash functions with homomorphic properties? [duplicate]

Are there cryptographic hash functions that have homomorphism-like properties? E.g. satisfying following relation $h(a || b) = h(a) · h(b)$, where $h(x)$ is hash function itself, $x || y$ is ...
1k views

### How does cryptanalysis of the Playfair cipher work?

I have a set of Playfair-enciphered data that I'm trying to crack without the key. I know I need to analyse bigrams; I've currently worked out what decrypts to th, <...
361 views

### Is calculating HMAC from hashed input a good idea?

Original HMAC algorithm is as follows: H(K XOR opad || H(K XOR ipad || text)) What if text would replaced with H(text)? ...
225 views

### Is there any general description language for block ciphers?

In page 9 (16 in the PDF) of Final report of European project IST-1999-12324 (NESSIE), it is mentioned that: The NESSIE project is also developing a new generic tool to analyze block ciphers ...
236 views

### Is full Homomorphic encryption quantum resistant?

Since most of our asymmetric encryption algorithms are going to be out-of-date in a couple of year due to Shor's algorithm, I was wondering about the future of FHE schemes. I have found this paper, ...
338 views

### Is the HMAC construction really neccessary for a fixed length message?

The HMAC Construction is defined as: Hash( (Key XOR opad) || Hash((Key XOR ipad) || Message) ) This was designed because a simpler construction such as: ...
554 views

### Did non-military cryptography appear in 50's and 60's only due to NSA leaks?

I'm not talking about scytale, but encryption like RSA, DES, etc... How did exactly civil cryptography evolve after World War II?
419 views

### Given enough RSA ciphertext, is it possible to determine which key was used?

Given enough RSA ciphertext, is it possible to determine which public key was used to generate the ciphertext? Presume an unknown public key that was used to generate RSA ciphertext, and we have ...
305 views

### Can non-assembly crypto libraries truly be secure against timing attacks?

http://cr.yp.to/antiforgery/cachetiming-20050414.pdf states the following: So what went wrong? Answer: NIST failed to recognize that table lookups do not take constant time. “Table lookup: not ...
539 views

### Deniable Encryption from simple primitives

Is there a deniable encryption scheme $M = E(p_1,k_1,p_2,k_2,...,p_n,k_n), p_j = D(M,k_j)$ of $n$ plaintexts $p_1,p_2,...,p_n$ and $n$ keys $k_1,k_2,...,k_n$, such that we can fix $D$ to be a known ...
428 views

### Cryptanalysis and weaknesses of SEED cipher

I've discovered that a client has SEED enabled in their SSL ciphers, and would like to know a bit more about it from a security perspective. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention any flaws, yet I've ...
345 views

### Low complexity implementation of a small blocksize cipher (< 64 bit)

Searching for "small blocksize cipher" finds a number of discussions on the topic, mostly refering to FPE. This one in particular suggests using AES as the round function of a Feistel network. The ...
2k views

### RSA-based authentication and key-agreement protocol

An authentication and key-agreement protocol between devices shall mutually demonstrate their identity, and establish a shared random secret $R$ suitable for securing later communications. To that ...
265 views

### Difference between “ECDH with cofactor key” and “ECDH without cofactor key”?

I need to use “ECDH with a cofactor key” for generating symmetric key. I have a fair idea on how ECDH works, but I don’t understand the cofactor part. What is the difference between ”ECDH with a co-...