# All Questions

366 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)? ...
557 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?
426 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 ...
343 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 ...
228 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 ...
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, <...
246 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Since most of our asymmetric encryption algorithms are going to be out-of-date in a couple of year due to Shor's algorithm, I was wondering about the future of FHE schemes.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, ...
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 ...
340 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: ...
545 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 ...
164 views

### Are there groups where the computational Diffie Hellman problem is easy but the discrete log problem is hard?

I know that there are elliptic curve groups, used in pairing-based cryptography, where the decisional Diffie Hellman problem (ie. given $g$, $g^a$, $g^b$ and $c$, determine if $c = g^{ab}$ is easy but ...
290 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-...
625 views

### Meaning of “family” in “family of hash functions”

Many definitions related to universal hashing mention the term "a family of hash functions, say $H$". What does this 'family' mean exactly? A numerical example would be appreciated. Also, what does it ...
589 views

### HMAC for short messages

I am using HMAC (hmac-sha256 to be precise) message authentication without encryption. My question is, is having a short message make it easy to determine what my secret key is? My C# code is as ...
440 views

### Useful pairings for cryptography

I've recently looked a bit at pairing based cryptography and I was wondering what properties the groups involved should have in order to be useful for cryptographic purposes? Has anything more exact ...
1k views

### Security of authenticated encryption modes GCM & CCM

I have two questions for Clarification for AE mode choice criteria GCM : it appears to be actually the most popular and widely used AE mode of operation. however it is also well-known to be highly ...
352 views

### What are the practical implications of ciphertext distinguishability?

Commonly there are four ways to "break" a secrecy-focused cryptosystem: Recover the secret key Recover the message Distinguish an encryption from random noise Distinguish the encryption of two ...
448 views

### What's the reason for applying the hash twice when hashing with salt?

One of the typical approaches to computing a salted hash is this: hash(salt+hash(secret)) where hash is something like SHA-256 hash function - taking any size ...
349 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 ...
1k views

### How much entropy is lost via hashing when you add known or low entropy data?

(I updated the title, as I think there was some confusion as to the question) Here's the question: For example, if I have a bit stream that is 64K bytes long and there is about 16 *8 bits worth of ...
437 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 ...
8k views

### PBKDF2WithHmacSHA512 Vs. PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1

I'm working on a Java authentication subsystem that specs the storage of passwords in the DB as PBKDF2-generated hashes, and I'm now trying to decide whether I ...
2k views

### What is the progress on the MIT LCS35 Time Capsule Crypto-Puzzle?

Ron Rivest posed a puzzle in 1999. MIT LCS35 Time Capsule Crypto-Puzzle. The problem is to compute $2^{2^t} \pmod n$ for specified values of $t$ and $n$. Here $n$ is the product of two large ...
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 ...
176 views

### Purpose of DES parity bits

DES has a 64-bit key size, but only 56 of those are used during encryption. The other 8 are "parity bits". What was the intended purpose of the party bits, and why are they no longer used in modern ...
622 views

### Does omitting the first two lines of RC4's pseudo-random generation algorithm weaken the cipher?

A particular educational software program published by a U.S. government agency uses a variant of RC4 to obfuscate its data files (see Stack Overflow question). The variant of RC4 in question is ...
201 views

### Is there an upper bound to the private exponent in RSA?

In the RSA algorithm, we choose $p$ and $q$ as prime numbers and we select a value $e$ which is coprime to $\varphi(pq)=(p-1)(q-1)$. Then we calculate $d:=e^{-1}\bmod\varphi(pq)$. My question is: ...
292 views

### What is the “compression function” in Merkle-Damgård?

Is the "compression function" in Merkle-Damgård just a collision-resistant, one-way hash function but one that operates only on fixed size inputs? If so, is MD just a way to extend it to work on ...
424 views

### Small subgroup confinement attack on Diffie-Hellman

I am trying to understand the small subgroup confinement attack on the Diffie-Hellman algorithm. I will present the attack and try to explain why it works. Small subgroup confinement attack on the ...
553 views

### How to generate unique (random) numbers that can be traced back to a unique source number?

I need to generate unique (random) numbers that I can trace back to a unique source number. For example: source number A can generate numbers A1, A1, A3 .... Am source number B can generate numbers ...
163 views

### Is it possible to construct a secure block cipher of size $2n$ given a secure block cipher of size $n$?

Given, say, the Blowfish block cipher, which is considered secure but only has a 64-bit block size, can we construct a secure block cipher of 128-bit block size? Say we run the key through two KDFs, ...
278 views

### Do test vectors ensure a cipher is free of backdoors?

If a cipher implementation passes unit tests using test vectors from some trusted source (these for AES, for example), then can we say that it is fully conforming to the specification, and must have ...
177 views

### Digital signature for an expiring password

I would like to create a publicly available tool that is used to generate a password that gives a limited time access to a resource. My idea is to digitally sign the current date with a private key ...
871 views

### Why does applying 56-bit DES twice only give 57 bits of security? [duplicate]

Given two 56-bit keys, $k_1$ and $k_2$, why does $E_{k_1}(E_{k_2}(M))$ only give 57 bits of security? So basically I'm unsure why it only gives 57 bits of security; I understand that one key will ...
519 views

### Initialization Vector Properties

This is a multi-layer problem, and I want to take you through the whole thing rather than just asking about IVs. Bear with me. Also, all code below is in Common Lisp because that's what I'm using, but ...
723 views

### AES column mixing and S-Box confusion

I am trying to understand the AES encryption algorithm. I know that we process 128 bits at a time for a 128 bit key in a 4x4 octet form, but am confused by the following: How does the substitution ...
529 views

### Is there a technique to confirm that a given large integer value is a product of two primes?

Given a list of 2048 bit integer values in which one or few 2048 bit integer values may be product of two prime numbers and other values may be just 2048 bit odd integers numbers. My question is - ...
216 views

### What functions allow for practical indistinguishability obfuscation?

Recently, there has been a major theoretical breakthrough in program obfuscation, in the area of indistinguishability obfuscation. Background: Indistinguishability obfuscation is a form of program ...
161 views

### How can I find the order of the group that an elliptic curve is defined over?

I have a Weierstrass elliptic curve ($y^2=x^3+a \times x+b \mod p$) How can I find the order of the group itself? I have seen Mathematica has a GroupOrder[] ...
89 views

### Do low-entropy fingerprints actually make any sense?

I'm thinking of ZRTP and OTR in particular here. From my understanding, after a Diffie-Hellman session is initiated, the shared secret is then hashed into a 4-digit number, which the two parties can ...
566 views

### Computing IV for CBC from PBKDF2 + HKDF

Note that this question is somewhat similar to Can I use my random IV (for AES) as a salt for PBKDF2? My current encryption format computes two random PBKDF2 salts (encryption and HMAC, 8 bytes each) ...
347 views

### S-box Cryptanalytic Resistance

In DES, different S-boxes were tested for cryptanalytic resistance and the most secure one was chosen for the algorithm itself. How do different S-boxes offer different levels of security against ...
948 views

### ElGamal signature without calculating the inverse

I stumbled upon this question in some textbook. Propose a variant of ElGamal signature scheme such that there is no need to calculate the inverse $k^{-1}$ as it is usually done using the EEA. ...
41 views

### Is it possible and safe to use SAKKE for signing/verification, rather than for encryption?

Is it safe to use the Sakai–Kasahara key encryption algorithm (SAKKE) for signing/verification, rather than for encryption? (Example at bitbucket.org) In particular, I want many Bobs to be able to ...
250 views

### Is it better to encrypt before compression or vice versa?

Is it better to encrypt a plain text file before compression, or vice versa?
217 views

### Why does a non-prime DH modulus creates a “NOBUS” backdoor

can't we do a nobus backdoor with DH modulus prime? Some have argued that with a prime modulus you can just get the order by doing p-1 and then factor it, thus it is easy to reverse. I argue that this ...
456 views

### How can I find two strings $m_1$ and $m_2$, knowing that I know $m_1 \oplus m_2$? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How does one attack a two-time pad (i.e. one time pad with key reuse)? I recently started to follow the cryptography class of Dan Boneh on coursera.org and the first part ...
218 views

### Hash which can be used to verify one of multiple inputs?

Is there a hash function H1 which, when given inputs a, b, etc., produces output ...