All Questions

51 views

OTP same message encrypted twice (with different keys)

Lets say we have a message $m$ that we encrypt with two keys $k_1, k_2$ such that $k_1 \ne k_2$. This will produce two ciphertexts $c_1, c_2$ such that $c_1 = m \oplus k_1, c_2 = m \oplus k_2$. The ...
55 views

Why an upside down path on the evaluation of branching program on encrypted data?

Suggested by Ricky Demer in this post, I am reading the paper "Evaluating Branching Programs on Encrypted Data"(TCC 2007), which uses one-round strong OT protocol to implement homomorphic evaluation ...
42 views

Are there any encryption schemes that enable to permute homomorphically?

According to the Barrington's theorem, any circuit in NC1 can be converted to a branching program, whose main operation is the composition of permutations (along with the choosing of permutations ...
320 views

Recommended password complexity for SSH key encryption using AES-256-CBC

When protecting SSH private keys with password-based encryption, what would be a good minimum password complexity+length standard to make cracking the password too difficult to be worthwhile anytime ...
516 views

How feasible would it be to generate 300 million public key pairs in 8 hours?

Assume there is a hypothetical situation where one would need to generate hundreds of millions of public key pairs of reasonable strength in a limited time. What would be required in terms of ...
37 views

Is double encryption using AES using different key lengths (128 bit and then 256 bit) vulnerable? [duplicate]

I know that AES 256 bit is far more than enough to secure a file. I just want to know if there are any vulnerabilities or known attacks which can make such this combination less secure "double ...
62 views

Is there a partially homomorphic quantum secure public key cryptosystem with IND-CCA1 security?

I recentely asked "IND-CCA1 RSA padding?" about whether there is a IND-CCA1 secure variant of RSA. The original version of the question also allowed usage of ECC which would allow usage of ElGamal, ...
91 views

Modular reduction for NIST prime P256— understanding the data

I am working on a project where I need to implement elliptic curve cryptography, I am struggling from a long time in order to understand the working and the process. Modular finite field arithmetic, ...
71 views

Digital signature algorithms within the European Union

I've just noticed that US NIST has accepted DSA as a digital signature standard. Does the European Union have a similar standard, specifying an algorithm to use when digitally signing messages? I ...
94 views

Why the $IV$ used in Merkle-Damgard has to be fixed to a specific value?

I just can't figure out why on earth the $IV$ in Merkle-Damgard has to be fixed (that's what the Katz-Lindell book says)? Because even if you choose it randomly from say $\{{0,1}\}^n$ then the ...
109 views

How can you produce visual cryptography?

I would like to be able to "code" images such as the one seen here on Wikipedia. Is this generally produced with software, or does this require complex programming? Ideally, I would love to be able ...
67 views

Why is there no 'ECDSA' version of 'DHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305'?

So I was just checking my TLS cipherlist and noticed that there was a 'DSS' / DSA / ECDSA version of every ...
85 views

Possible to determine equivalence of hash codes from different hashing functions?

Let $H_{1}(x)$, $H_{2}(x)$, ..., $H_{n}(x)$ be a list of $n$ secure one-way hash functions such that for a given input $x$ each $H_{i}(x) \neq H_{j}(x)$ when $i \neq j$. Give one hash function to ...
19 views

Enhanced Security Services / CAdES for PKCS7 - multiple signers for SignerInfo's?

In RFC5652, Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS), section 5.3. SignerInfo Type, there's a sid field that maps to this: ...
67 views

For each of the following modifications to the Merkle-Damgard transform, determine whether the result is collision resistant or not

$(a)$ Modify the construction so that the input length is not included at all (i.e., output $z_B$ and not $z_{B+1}=h^s(z_B||L)$). $(b)$ Modify the construction so that instead of outputting ...
36 views

Request for review: known plaintext mitigation by rotation and xor encoding

When using structured data inside a plaintext (such as gzip headers, xml, etc.) they generate known plaintext which may be useful in cracking the ciphertext. So I had these two ideas on how to make ...
113 views

Safety of AES ECB when used with openssl_seal function

I'm trying to use PHP to encrypt files with a public key. I'm using the function openssl_seal that "encrypts data by using RC4 with a randomly generated secret key." RC4 is considered unsafe so the ...
48 views

Probability of $D_k(a*k+b) =p$ for a PRP

I'm wondering what the probability of a PRP having numerous keys (say 3 or more) with the same simple idempotent, or near identity, function. For example, does there exist values of $p, a, b, x_1,$ ...
51 views

Question about OR operation in fully homomorphic encryption

This page (which won't let me post a comment, sadly!) describes how the original FHE paper by Craig Gentry describes FHE. (Other references to this stuff can be found on this question.) It mentions ...
106 views

Combine two sha512 hashes to a single hash

Assume I have two data fragments: $Frag_1$ and $Frag_2$. I can build sha512 hashes the usual way with $SHA512(Frag_1)$ and $SHA512(Frag_2)$ and then hash the two fragments appended to each other: ...
79 views

Is there a standard for public key encrypting and signing short messages?

Some systems, that operate over flaky bearers, need to send signed, encrypted messages that are entirely self contained - i.e. send a single 300 byte UDP rather than have a 10Kb, two-way, certificate ...
110 views

How to formally prove that a given hash construction is collision resistant or not?

Is there a precise procedure or strategy to follow in order to prove in a formal way the (not) collision-resistance of a certain given hash construction? I.e. let $H_1$ and $H_2$ be two hash ...
39 views

Is it possible to generate backdoored DH parameters?

I know it has been already asked and answered whether it's possible to generate weak DH parameters. But "recentely" we experienced the Logjam attack, which makes use of the pre-computation ...
35 views

RC4 via nonlinear mixer — sound?

We implemented a rc4 (ARC4) variant for creating a cryptographic stream - question is: Is this sound? (I'll give an example for 32 bit variant, though 64 bit/larger is possible) Algorithm is as ...
26 views

Diffie-Hellman in the wild

Say we have a public network and lots of peers. Each may need to communicate with another peer. Would there be any huge security issue to each peer making the the public part of their key openly ...
100 views

Digital Signature Attack

In a typical digital signature scheme in which in order to sign we compute: hash of the message: $h(m)$ resulting hash signed with the private key $[h(m)](private key)$ If there were a collision ...
77 views

Is a 256 bit HMAC-SHA256 key compromised if the tail is used for identification?

Using a truncated hash of a key seems to be a safe way to identify the key (i.e. key fingerprint), but what about truncating a key itself in the case of HMAC-SHA256? Example: ...
84 views

SHA512 vs HKDF key expansion

I'm working on a secure file storage server. This server allows users to upload and download files based on a "seed". This "seed" is a 128-bit value. From this 128-bit seed, we run SHA512 to derive a ...
90 views

How does the birthday paradox apply to random keys?

I'm developing a web app where I wish to use pseudorandom keys for items, perhaps akin to Imgur. I was thinking about how many combinations I need to reduce the chance of someone guessing any random ...
57 views

Using scrypt to generate key + IV/nonce together

Is there any security issue in using scrypt for Key + IV/nonce generation? In other words, can I safely use only a salt for scrypt and derive the nonce along with the key? For example: I have data I ...
146 views

Is entropy being lost when the hash of a secret has a specific format?

Bitcoin's mini private key format works by brute forcing random data to produce a secret so that when appending ? and then hashing with sha256 it will produce a ...
518 views

Combining several symmetric ciphers using XOR

I have seen a talk by Rüdiger Weis, where he says that you can combine two symmetric ciphers using XOR. According to him, that has the effect that its sufficient if only one of the ciphers is secure. ...
106 views

Hashing a Diffie-Hellman result

In many implementations, the result of the Diffie-Hellman algorithm is hashed. I read that: Hashing the shared secret point prevents an attacker from gaining more information about the EC private ...
29 views

Possible to detect if a message is PGP encrypted/signed (ciphertext)

Let's say I have a text field somewhere (i.e. an interactive user submitted text field on a PHP script, or a console application. Basically anything that accepts user input.) How can I detect if said ...
167 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, ...
135 views

Calculating $\mathbb F_{p^2}$-rational points of an elliptic curve defined over $\mathbb F_p$

How can I calculate points on an elliptic curve defined over $\mathbb F_p$, for example $y^2 \equiv x^3 + 1 \pmod p$, with coordinates in $\mathbb F_{p^2}$? (points might have complex number format in ...
123 views

Small subgroup attack on Diffie-Hellman

I am trying to understand the small subgroup attack on Diffie-Hellman. I will present the attack and try to explain why it works. Let be a group $\mathbb{Z}_p^*$ where $p$ is a large prime, so the ...
51 views

How ECDH algorithm selects modulus value?

I am curious to know how an ECDH algorithms select a module value, if both ends A & B can generate same shared key using the public key of each other ? If I understood DH correctly, both A and B ...
84 views

Let $G$ be a PRG. Are the following $G'$ constructions based on $G$ necessarily PRGs?

$G$ is a PRG where $|G(s)| > 2 \cdot |s|$. $G'(s) = G(s0^{|s|})$. $G'(s) = G(s_1...s_{n/2})$, where $s = s_1...s_n$. My question here is whether my own proposed solutions are correct and do ...
71 views

What is this encryption system called?

Let's say you want to break down a message, for simplicity it is just a bit $0$ or $1$, $m$ into two messages $(m_1, m_2)$ as follows: If $m =0$, then $(m_1, m_2) = (0, 0)$ with probability $1/2$ and ...
95 views

variant of Diffie–Hellman key exchange protocol

Motivation Consider the following variant of Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol for two parties: Assume Alice and Bob share $\mathbb{G}$ of order $q$ generated by $g$ Alice samples $a$ ...
42 views

Testing PRNG quality from ECC public keys?

Having a large set of ECC public keys $P_i = n_iB$ on a fixed curve $E$ over a prime field, is there a way to determine if coefficients $n_i$ were generated using a bad PRNG? In other words, can a ...
77 views

How does the small n attack work?

I'm studying the Lamport's Hash one-time password scheme. This is the scheme: Alice wants to authenticate herself to Bob from a workstation that knows nothing about her. Alice only knows her ...
1k views

What is the difference between Shannon entropy and saying that tossing a 6-sided die 100 times has more than 256-bit entropy?

I'm confused. I thought that tossing a 6-sided die 100 times had a greater than 256-bit entropy because $6^{99} < 2^{256} < 6^{100}$. (A similar concept appeared in this XKCD comic, where ...
78 views

File encryption with AES CTR mode

I understand that encrypting files in CTR mode is not perfectly safe, because it potentially leaves the files open for cryptanalysis, if the attacker has access to previous versions of the same files. ...
269 views

Cryptography and FPGA

I see a lot of papers about FPGA implementations. For what kind of "concrete" application should we implement cryptographic algorithms on FPGA ? Which secured application require such a huge data ...
111 views

Why isn't a table used to solve the large number factoring problem?

Lots of modern encryption (RSA comes to mind) are based on the fact that factoring large numbers is hard. However, multiplying large numbers is much easier, and table lookups are very easy. Since ...
71 views

Usage of Zero-knowledge proofs for NP-complete languages

It is well known that if OWFs/PRGs exist, then there is a zero knowledge proof for any NP-complete language, say G3C (graph coloring in 3 colors). The zero-knowledge notion maintains that any ...
Given a cryptographic pseudo-random number generator $G$, prove that $H$ with $H(s) = G(!s)$ is also a cryptographic pseudo-random number generator. Here $s$ is a binary string; $!s$ is its ...