# All Questions

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### Looking for cryptographic secure hash algorithm(s) that produces identical root hash for differently sliced hash list

I have a scenario similar to the one described in Wikipedia: hash list, but with a twist. I'm looking for a cryptographically secure hash function that would create the same root hash for the same ...
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### With EC secp256k1 is there a way of transforming a function of the private key to a function of the public key?

A key pair has a private key $D_A$ and a public key $Q_A$. $D_A$ is an integer less than the curve's $n$. Is there any (boolean) function of the private key $f(D_A)$ which can be transformed into a ...
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### Algorithm to transform plaintext to a key of desired keysize, when using input plaintext as key for FPE?

Using a format preserving encryption scheme that uses AES internally as its block cipher, for a plaintext that I encrypt I want to use that input plaintext as the key. However using AES-128, my ...
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### Using a product of a series of curve25519 scalars as a private key

There are a few systems like the GNU Name System and the Sphinx mixnet packet format that employ a series of curve25519 scalars all multiplied together as a private key. Are there any caveats to ...
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### Hash functions vs. keyed hash functions in the context of private key generation

I'm designing a key distribution mechanism and have thought of using a securely generated/acquired private key as a seed for a sequence of private keys to be distributed to a number of users using a ...
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I read this post from Ben Tasker describing how to take control of a powerline network. Since I am interested in security, I tried to do the same thing, to see if it was possible. I used Devolo ...
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### How much processing power should you assume an attacker has?

The answer to this question says that you should assume an attacker can do one billion operations per second: Key Size for Symmetric Homomorphic Encryption Over the Integers Is that a single attacker ...
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### What are the required security properties for salts?

I was recently thinking about password hashing (maybe caused by the PHC progression). I started to think a little more about it and got stuck at this question: What security properties do ...
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### Proving an encrypted message contains (but does not 100% consist of) a plain-text message? [duplicate]

I have keypair (u,r), and two pieces of data, X and Y. I reveal X publicly but keep Y secret. Y has high entropy. I then combine X and Y, into c(X,Y) = Z. I encrypt Z, into "encrypt(Z,u) = Q". r ...
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### How to encrypt/decrypt data in an SPI BIOS FLASH

I need some info/suggestions about the cryptographic algorithm that make me sure that the executed bios by the CPU is an authenticated bios. The check has to be performed by a FPGA. I have SPI Flash ...
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### ElGamal signatures systems

Let $p$ prime number $q/p-1$ prime and $g\in (Z/pZ)^*$ element of order $q$.Also $a\in \{1,...,q-1\}$ the private key and $y\equiv g^a\pmod p$ the correspoding public key.For each of the following ...
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### Converting a pre-image resistant hash to second pre-image resistant

I am looking for some standard conversion from any hash function $f$, which has pre-image resistance, to another hash function with second preimage resistance. Is there such a standard conversion?
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### IES: What security has the asymmetric primitive to provide?

I think most of us know the notion Shoup introduced of KEM/DEM (Key encryption material / data encryption material) which is used for example by the (famous) ECIES, where the key is the hash of some ...
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### Derive cipher IV and cipher Key using PBKDF2 with random salt?

It is said that cipher IV does not have to be secret and the only secret component of the encryption scheme should be a cipher key. Question: is it safe to generate IV using PBKDF2 function, which ...
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### Severity of Cooking NIST P Curve Constants

Bruce Schneier and Gregory Maxwell have both stated that they believe the constants chosen for NIST's P curves (i.e. P-256r) are cooked. DJB has put together a detailed list of red flags but, outside ...
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### Could this alternative hash based MAC construction be as, or even more secure than an HMAC?

Begin hashing (Key||Message) Encrypt the hash state (or some part of it, such as the first 128 or 256 bits), with the key. Add the encrypted hash state to the ...
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### Is what i'm trying to do safe?

What both parties have: Server Master Secret (MS) Server supported versions (Svers) Agreed upon version (ver) Client Master Secret (MS) Client supported versions (Cvers) Agreed upon version (Ver) ...
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### Rabin-Williams, blinding and size of Integer r?

I was reading the paper Breaking the Rabin-Williams digital signature system implementation in the Crypto++ library. The library uses blinding, but it was not enough to stop key recovery. But my ...
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### SHACAL-2 vs. AES as underlying block cipher for Secure Hash (aka SHA-256)

The hashing scheme SHA-256 (for instance) is based on Merkle-Damgard construction with the underlying compression function based on the block cipher SHACAL-2 configured in Davies Meyer mode. SHACAL-2 ...
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### Is computing roots moduli a composite $N$ a hard problem without knowing the factorization of $N$?

Suppose that we are given $\mathbb{Z}_{N}$ and an element $x^u \in \mathbb{Z}_{N}$ with $u \in (0,l]$ where $l$ is the bit-size of $N$. Is it difficult to recover $x$ by knowing $u$ without knowing ...
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### Regarding NTRU homomorphic properties

NTRU has some homomorphic properties modulo q, supporting both addition and multiplication. Due to its nature, it cannot support many of them. My main focus currently is in the addition, so the ...
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### Koblitz encoding a message to a point, what is the “associated auxiliary base parameter”?

I am looking at the Koblitz method for encoding a message as an elliptic curve point. The first step given in the paper I'm reading is: "Choose an elliptic curve and its associated auxiliary base ...
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### How does ccrypt work?

On many Linux/GNU distributions CCrypt (ccrypt) by Peter Selinger is available as a command line utility to encrypt files. How does the protocol work and is it ...
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### What is the period of a cipher?

For the following explanation of RC4: It is a variable key-size stream cipher with byte-oriented operations. The algorithm is based on the use of a random permutation. Analysis shows that the ...
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### What is the difference between a hash function and a pseudorandom function? [duplicate]

Read the title. I've seen in RFCs that some MAC functions are called "pseudorandom functions". What are those? How are they different than hash functions? Why can't a hash function be used instead?
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### Difference between Pseudorandom Function vs randomly chosen function

I am currently going through a course in cryptography. In this, I stumbled upon Pseudorandom Functions. I got a little idea of Pseudorandom Generators which map an input string (key) to an extended ...
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### Point decompression on an elliptic curve

I'm programming an elliptic curve cryptosystem and I'm having difficulty with decompressing points. The following information is from my project specification as to my understanding: Given a point ...
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### In the STS Authentication Protocol, why are the signatures encrypted?

From Wikipedia: (1) Alice → Bob : g^x (2) Alice ← Bob : g^y, E_K(S_B(g^y, g^x)) (3) Alice → Bob : E_K(S_A(g^x, g^y)) I know there should be something I'm ...
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### Hill cipher key space

Key space is the set of all possible keys that can be used to generate a key. We using the number of valid key to describe it. I've given a hill cipher of block size $k$ over alphabet of size $p$, ...
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### Why don't we use H(m||k) as a MAC? [duplicate]

HMAC seems a bit complicated. Why can't we use $H(m||k)$ as a MAC? Unlike $H(k||m)$, length extension attacks won't work. Is there some other obvious attack?