# All Questions

68 views

### Storing encryption key

It's my first time using stackexchange! So, I am doing a password manager in Java. But now I am VERY confused because of the encryption. There will be the program login, where the user types its ...
27 views

### Test PFS / EC-DHE authentication support [closed]

Can someone give me examples of testing of a website for PFS/ECDHE authentication support? I was hoping I could do it with cURL first and then OpenSSL, but I am open to any cli tools. On one guys' ...
223 views

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

This is for a challenge at followthewhiterabbit.trustpilot.com: We have a message for you. It’s 3ncryp73d and we want you to crack it. The decrypted message will contain further instructions. ...
119 views

### pairing-based schemes

some authors claimed that computational performance of a pairing-fee scheme (based on scalar multiplication over an elliptic curve group) is about 1000% more efficient than a pairing based one I would ...
588 views

### How long does it take to crack PBKDF2?

How much time will it take to crack PBKDF2 while using a 9 character password? I'm not specifying any specific system or platform. If a brute force attack is made using the best ever super computer ...
20 views

### Are there any reasons for using SSL over IPSec? [migrated]

is it recommended to use both protocols together? In which situation?
274 views

### How vulnerable is the C rand() in public cryptography protocols?

I just learned about the basics of public cryptography a few weeks ago and I am curious as to why the C rand() function should not be used for crypto schemes. For example, say I want to generate a ...
45 views

### How to find which padding method is used in Block cipher(AES) encyption?

I have a cipher text which is encrypted using AES128 Algorithm. I want to know the following things to decrypt the cipher. IV (Initialization Vector) Padding Method Encryption Key How do I find ...
78 views

### Using GMAC for Authentication without encrypting the message

I am pretty new to cryptography and have a sample of GCM mode of operation for AES. PFB the code ...
127 views

### Decryption issue with self-coded AES-128

I have written my own AES-128bit implementation in Java, till yesterday I thought it would be alright. (I was working on the encryption) Now I’m trying to decrypt my encrypted cleartext, but this ...
33 views

### Does bad IV generation weaken CBC? [duplicate]

Let's say that I generate an IV like so: dd if=/dev/urandom of=iv.bin bs=16 count=1 Let's also say that /dev/urandom has been ...
74 views

### Collecting entropy: can I use timing of reading as a separate source from the reading itself?

I'm implementing an entropy gathering program. For that I collect 2 bits from two gpio-pins connected to a random source. I whiten this stream of bits using the von Neumann decorrelation algorithm. ...
123 views

### Attack on DSA modification with bad hash function

Given a (bad) modification of DSA where the hash function is the identity ($H(m)=m$), I am now supposed to design an attack. So $(m, (r,s))$ are given and I should be able to create a legit signature ...
762 views

### Does having a known plaintext prefix weaken AES256? [duplicate]

I plan on storing data, encrypted with AES256, where the first dozen bytes are known plaintext. ('Hello World!' for example.) Does having this known plaintext prefix weaken AES256? I do not care ...
116 views

### CBC-MAC length extension attack with IV simulation

I'm doing Matasano's challenges and struggling with second part of 49th problem where I'm asked to do the length extension attack with CBC-MAC without IV manipulation. There is a hint that I can ...
3k views

### How to distribute session keys in public key cryptography?

In public key cryptography we can also use session keys which are symmetric. How do the sender (say a server) provides this session key information to its clients? If the sender (here server) ...
121 views

### Is it safe to reuse ECDH asymmetric keys for authentication?

Alice, Bob, and Carol each generate ECDH keypairs. Alice and Bob establish a communication channel and negotiate an AliceBob secret. The question is: Is it safe for Alice and/or Bob to reuse their ...
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 ...
311 views

### Leak-proof protocol: is such a thing possible?

Is it possible to design a protocol that by itself guarantees that a malicious implementation cannot leak secret data without breaking the protocol? Setting: Alice and Bob have a pre-shared secret ...
68 views

### Galois field step in XEX mode

I'm reading through the XEX mode spec, and I want to make sure I've understood the $\alpha^j$ step correctly: $X = E_K(I) \oplus \alpha^j$ $C = E_K(M \oplus X) \oplus X$ where: $M$ is the ...
103 views

### Which version(s) of SRP are in ISO/IEC 11770-4:2006?

I am on the impression that SRP emerges as the least uncommon and best analyzed protocol for authentication and key agreement based on a short password. This states that SRP is part of IEC 11770-4, ...
65 views

### A question about elliptic curves and finite fields in bilinear pairings

Based on what mentioned in the paper "Pairings For Cryptographers" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166218X08000449 the two inputs of a pairing map are two members of two additive ...
55 views

### How does AES-CCM work in BitLocker?

I'm studying this white-paper: http://jessekornblum.com/publications/di09.pdf The author says that using AES-CCM with the external key (highlighted in green at page 9, figure 4) and with the nonce at ...
75 views

### Protocol: Coin Flipping over phone

Protocol: Coin Flipping over telephone Hypothesis: Alice and Bob have agreed: a one to one function $f$ which is easy to compute $f(x)$ from $x$ and while given any value $f(x)$ it is nearly ...
101 views

### How does recovering the public key from an ECDSA signature work?

It is possible to recover the public key from an ECDSA signature (R,S). Please explain me how this works.
2k views

### How long does it take a quantum computer to brute force AES?

I understand that using Grover's algorithm it only requires $2^{64}$ lookups for a 128 bit AES encryption, leading people to say we need to increase to 256 bit keys. But how long would it actually ...
11k views

### What are the practical difference between 256-bit, 192-bit, and 128-bit AES encryption?

AES has several different variants: AES-128 AES-192 AES-256 But why would someone prefer use one over another?
691 views

### How to account for moore's law in estimating time-to-crack?

It seems to be common practice (at least in some communities) to tack on the phrase "with current computing power" when estimating the absurdly long time it would take to, for example, brute-force an ...
105 views

### What is the entropy per Diceware word if a random symbol is inserted into a random position in the word?

On the Diceware page is this little gem: For extra security without adding another word, insert one special character or digit chosen at random into your passphrase... Inserting a letter at ...
75 views

### Could I use an hashing function for Symmetric encryption? [duplicate]

I know there are way better and more tested encryption methods, but I was wondering if the following code could be use for symmetric encryption? ...
584 views

### Bitcoin Research

I have recently been assigned to advise a student on a senior thesis in math. She has taken linear algebra, introductory real analysis, basic cryptography, and abstract algebra. Her interest is in ...
49 views

### mixing two asymmetrical random number generator streams

Knuth describes in "the art of computer programming part 2" an algorithm called "M" for mixing two streams of random numbers. This can be used to mix random number streams giving the assurance that ...
139 views

### Does CCA security imply authenticated encryption?

Does CCA security imply authenticated encryption?
141 views

### Effective security of block cipher – equal the key size, or half the key size?

The Wikipedia “Key Size” article states: The security of an algorithm cannot exceed its key length (since any algorithm can be cracked by brute force), but it can be smaller. … … … Most ...
84 views

### Clarification of the terms “brute force” and “guess”

In the answer to the question “What exactly is a negligible (and non-negligible) function?” There is a part in the explanation that – as far as my knowledge goes – is conflicting: But instead of ...
114 views

### generate hash of all handshake messages for verify data (DTLS)

I am trying to create a DTLS client finished packet, where I need to generate verify data for handshake hash is need. And here I want to know how to generate handshake hash. As of now I am doing like ...
251 views

### What is the usual block cipher mode that goes with CTS

I am wondering: what is the most common, or most used, block cipher mode used that goes with CTS (CypherText Stealing)? Is it ebc or cbc?
91 views

### Is CTS necessary on a AES-CBC DRBG?

As I understand it, CTS pads the last block and swaps it with the second last to compensate for a partial block of data. I have written a DRBG (Deterministic Random Bit Generator) using AES-CBC that ...
260 views

### Random Number Generator based on AES CTR

I've just about done tinkering with an open source DRBG, and I sure would appreciate a bit of advice from this community. Here's the link to the project, hosted at codeproject.com. It is written in ...
75 views

### McEliece and cryptanalysis

What is the computational time to break McEliece on a quantum computer? I've seen that polynomial time algorithms exist, but for special conditions. What about the general case?
99 views

### Basic attacks on McEliece; finding S and P

Take a McEliece cryptosystem with public generator matrix $G' = S G P$ where $G$ is a generator of a secret code with known fast decoding (not necessarily a Goppa code over $\mathbb{F}_2$), $S$ is ...
45 views

### Is jacobian to projective conversion unique?

I am doing a small project in ECC. I have used the following equation for converting Projective to Jacobian coordinates: $$D = AC\\ E = BC^{2}\\ F = C$$ and also the following equation to convert ...
121 views

### Constants Differ in SHA1 implementation

I am trying to understand why the constants differ in this SHA1 implementation: https://code.google.com/p/crypto-js/source/browse/tags/3.1.2/src/sha1.js ...
10k views

### How much would it cost in U.S. dollars to brute force a 256 bit key in a year?

I am often told that any key can be broken and that it is only a matter of time and resources for any key to be broken. I know that this it technically true. However, I think that there is probably a ...
179 views

### RFC 3526 - What does pi mean?

In RFC 3526 there are a series of primes listed as standard parameters used for Diffie-Helman. The primes are list in two formats. One is the long format, where the number is given in hex. For ...
66 views

### Is there any _true_ anonymous cryptocurrencies? [migrated]

I've been looking into Bitcoin recently and stumbled upon numerous notes how Bitcoin is not anonymous at all, or how it's only partially anonymous and you can easily trace your funds. So, this ...
69 views

### If I add a stream of true and pseudo random numbers, do I get another stream of true random numbers? [duplicate]

I am thinking of buying a USB hardware advertised as producing a stream of 'high quality' random numbers which I take to mean they are indistinguishable from a stream of 'true' random numbers. If I ...
97 views

### AES256-GCM - can someone explain how to use it securely (ruby)

I am looking into using AES256-GCM for encrypting some database fields. I know that for AES256-CBC, I need to generate a new IV for each encrypt, but I can use the same key. The IV can be openly ...
### In RSA, why does $p$ have to be bigger than $q$ where $n=p \times q$?
In openSSL – during RSA key generation – if $q$ is bigger than $p$, they exchange them. Why is that?