# All Questions

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### How can I map arbitrary group elements to unique integers without using Hash functions?

Let's say, I have a group $G$ of large prime order $p$. A set $S$ consists of $n$ random elements chosen from $G$. Without using a collision resistant hash function $H$, how can I map elements of $G$ ...
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### Privacy-Preserving Protocols and Proofs of Security

While dabbling in privacy-preserving protocols (mainly using Semi-Homomorphic Encryption) and coming up with miscellaneous ideas for comparison tests or other similar primitives, based on obfuscation ...
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### Isn't a simple Vernam cipher as secure as known symmetric key algorithms?

I have just read little about the Vernam cipher and the problems of implementing it. But, in practice, would not the key, if generated by a commonly used programming language's ...
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### Are there valid attacks on full SHA-1?

Google today announced they are sunsetting SHA-1. Its fine by me. But that made me realize I am not keeping up with the research on SHA-1. The Wikipedia page only says Stevens' attack is the most ...
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### can Cocks-Pinch method apply to dual system encryption (HIBE and IBE)

can Cocks-Pinch method apply to dual system encryption (HIBE and IBE) Cocks-Pinch method build under composite order and Dual system encryption HIBE and HIBE also contructing using Lewko-Waters ...
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### How do you create a large PRP from a small one?

How can you efficiently create a pseudorandom permutation with a large domain given a PRP with a small domain? Meaning: given an $n$-bit PRP, how can I create an $n k$-bit PRP? I'm only interested in ...
4k views

### No SHA-1 collision? Yet SHA-1 is broken?

Is there a known pair of distinct bit strings (A,B) such that SHA-1(A) == SHA-1(B)? If the answer is no than how can SHA-1 be considered broken?
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### Why verify padding at all?

Whenever a ciphertext is decrypted using a block-cypher, we need to remove the padding. There are different ways to add padding, but they usually set the last byte of the last block to the number of ...
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### Is there a practical succinct interactive argument for fortress draws in chess endgames?

(In theory, it is known that collision-resistant hashing suffices for the type of protocol that I'm asking about: page 3.) Is there a known practical candidate protocol for succinctly (and ...
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### Selecting a Bouncy Castle named curve for ECC [duplicate]

I have been tasked with implementing ECDSA and ECDH in Java using the Bouncy Castle library. However, I am unsure of what curve to use. I am aware of the named curves listed in BC, and I've done a ...
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### “Practical” operations supported by functional encryption?

I'm curious about what operations have been developed into functional encryption schemes. What I mean by that is: what operations can be performed over encrypted ciphertexts? Obviously homomorphic ...
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### Does the initial exchange of random tokens in SKID3 authentication assure against replay attacks?

As the question suggests, I wanted to get a sanity-check on this issue... is it the case that the use of a random token exchange during SKID3 authentication itself constitute a prevention of a replay ...
281 views

### Breaking Double Encryption

I am trying to understand how an attacker knows when he has successfully decrypted a ciphertext for an assignment. As such, some pointers/hints for the following questions would be greatly ...
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### What are options to compute DES retail MAC (aka ISO 9797-1 mode 3) under PKCS#11?

The DES retail MAC, also known as ISO 9797-1 mode 3 with DES, computes the MAC of a block of data using a 16-byte (112 bit) key. It can be seen as CBC-MAC using simple DES with the first half of the ...
3k views

### How can SSL secure a two-way communication with only one key-pair?

As I understand it, SSL involved the use of a public-private key pair. How does this enable two-way communication? Suppose I have some server with which I wish to communicate securely. I connect to ...
67 views

### Parallel variant of Carter-Wegman MAC with incremental property

Is there any variant of the Carter-Wegman MAC algorithm that is fast, parallel and has the property of incremental crypto?
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### Generating S boxes that satisfy Coppersmith's criteria?

I'd like to generate all possible 6-bit to 4-bit S-Boxes that satisfy the criteria for S-Box design given by Coppersmith, but I have a few doubts: How many such S-Boxes are possible? Is there any ...
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### Is this correct way to generate stream cipher using AES CTR mode?

We are implementing searchable encryption techniques proposed by Song et al in Java for a paper[1]. The schemes need a Stream Cipher for achieving search over encrypted data. The stream of random bits ...
97 views

### Which public key encryption scheme is re-randomizable? How can I re-randomize an encryption scheme?

Which public key encryption scheme is re-randomizable? Is there any library for re-randomizable encryption scheme? If not, how can I re-randomize a given public key encryption scheme? I cannot find ...
57 views

### Perfectly secure shift cipher

Prove that if only one character is encrypted using a shift cipher, then the shift cipher is perfectly secure. I want to show that $P(P=p | C=c)=P(P=p)$. But I don't know how to relate. Can anyone ...
44 views

### Fail-Stop Signature when Signer is Attacker

Is there a way to construct a signature scheme that would be fail-stop when the signer is the computationally unlimited attacker? I know that conventional fail-stop signatures work essentially by ...
54 views

### DES S-Box properties

Two of the properties that lead to the design of DES S-Boxes are: 1)For any non-zero 6-bit difference between inputs, no more than 8 of the 32 pairs of inputs exhibiting that difference may result ...
3k views

### How does one calculate the scalar multiplication on elliptic curves?

I found this example online: In the elliptic curve group defined by $$y^2 = x^3 + 9x + 17 \quad \text{over } \mathbb{F}_{23},$$ what is the discrete logarithm $k$ of $Q = (4,5)$ to the base ...
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### Why does FIPS 186-4 require specific sizes for keys?

In FIPS 186-4, page 32, about FFC crypto it is required that the length of $p$ will be exactly 1024 bit and the length of $q$ will be exactly 160 bit. Why is the requirement not stated in terms of ...
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### What does $\to$ mean in the following definition of a block cipher?

In the following picture $\kappa$ is the key length and $n$ is the block size. I understand that $\{0,1\}^\kappa$ means all possible combination of keys and $\{0,1\}^n$ means all possible combination ...
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Padding oracle attacks are a huge nuisance when using CBC mode encryption without authentication. Wouldn't all those padding oracle attacks be avoided if we'd just use bit padding instead? Or is does ...
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### What's causing the poor randomness in this program: the LCG, or the program logic itself?

(Crypto Gods, I should begin by stressing that I haven't lost my mind: I'm not doing this in real life, I'm just trying to understand the theory behind what's happening. With your help, hopefully I ...
361 views

### Can I crack an AES string if I have all these parameters?

This is for a challenge at followthewhiterabbit.trustpilot.com: Knowns: The algorithm is AES (Rijndael) Blocksize: 128 Keysize: 256 You only need to find the first 6 bytes of the ...
83 views

### What is the most secure key expansion routine?

I am looking at G now, but is there a better, (in terms of security and speed), means by which a byte array can be expanded that doesn't involve another cipher, just a simple algorithm? I need to ...
93 views

### Privacy-Preserving relational databases: checking the existence of a record (or multiple records)

I would like to know if there exists a protocol which performs the following operation in a privacy-preserving fashion: User $U$ wants to know whether a record is stored in the database. The primary ...
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### Base64 for a hash algorithm

May be a silly question, but I am really curious. If a hash algorithm uses Base64 in the process of hashing a string for example, it is still considered a hash algorithm, even though it uses an ...
53 views

### Cracking an appliance's network protocol

I'm trying to crack my thermostat's network protocol. I've captured several rounds of network traffic and here is what I've got to work with. Communicating via HTTP POST The POST data is JSON ...
55 views

### Hill Cipher question

Recently, I was given three ciphers to crack for my cryptography class. At this point, I have guessed that one of them is likely a Hill cipher (probably 3x3, as that is the most complex we have done ...
114 views

### Can Bitcoin HD public keys be used for symmetric encryption?

I asked this at bitcoin.stackexchange.com first, but it seems that this is more of a crypto-question anyway. I'm interested in using a Hierarchical Deterministic Bitcoin wallet branch as a "shared ...
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### Families of public/private keys in elliptic curve cryptography

I'm looking for a related key scheme for elliptic curve cryptography. The basic idea would be that there would be a master public key and a master private key. From the master public key, you could ...
437 views

### Is secp256r1 more secure than secp256k1?

Curves secp256r1 and secp256k1 are both examples of two eliptic curves used in various asymmetric cryptography. Googling for these shows most of the top results are Bitcoin related. I've heard the ...