# All Questions

82 views

### Can someone explain how this unpadded RSA formula works?

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption, $\mathcal{E}(x_1) \cdot \mathcal{E}(x_2) = x_1^e x_2^e$ $\bmod\; m = (x_1x_2)^e \;$ $\bmod\; m = \mathcal{E}(x_1 \cdot x_2)$ What is ...
48 views

### blinding a hash vs. sending the hash directly

So with blind signatures you have two parties - A and B. A has a message that they want B to sign so A creates a hash of their message, blinds it, and then sends it to B to sign. That, as I understand ...
152 views

### Using single EC cert/keying material to derive symmetric encryption key (for storage)?

The situation involves a single party (single certificate) who would want to AES encrypt a file that they can later decrypt. Assume the EC certificate + EC keys have a purpose i.e. "File encryption" ...
507 views

### Why would anyone use an elliptic curve with a cofactor > 1?

In cryptography, an elliptic curve is a group based on a finite field $GF(p^k)$; this group has $n$ elements on it, and we work on a prime-sized subgroup of size $q$. We denote the value $h = n/q$ as ...
597 views

### Why do the elliptic curves recommended by NIST use 521 bits rather than 512?

Wikipedia says in reference to the elliptic curves officially recommended by NIST in FIPS 186-3: Five prime fields for certain primes p of sizes 192, 224, 256, 384, and 521 bits. For each of the ...
446 views

### Is there a hash function which has no collisions?

Is there a hash function which has no collisions? To clarify: it would be some function which would produce variable-length output, and never produce the same output for differing input. It would ...
192 views

### What's the most secure way to derive a key from a password repeatably?

I'm trying to write a cloud storage application where everything the user uploads is unreadable by the server, encrypted client-side before being sent. Currently, the flow looks like this: User ...
50 views

### How many blocks can we change if know MAC and key

I stumbled across a question while studying about MAC, I was thinking if the attacker knows the key and the MAC and he wants to change the message to send to the victim, then how many blocks can he ...
143 views

### How would I make a secret notation alphabet more secure?

Disclaimer: I was looking for a place to ask this question on SE and this site seems to be the most fitting. If this question doesn't belong here, feel free to redirect me. Just out of boredom and ...
95 views

### Generating keys with HKDF from Diffie Hellman agreement

In order to generate multiple session keys from a Diffie Hellman key agreement protocol, I'm trying to use the HKDF to generate this session keys. The HKDF algorithm uses an Extraction-Expand ...
571 views

### Order Preserving Encryption for Numeric Data Values

How can I ensure order of encrypted data i.e., Enc(m1) < Enc(m2) where m1 < m2, and all messages are integer values. I have gone through Order Preserving ...
132 views

### Shamir's secret sharing with passwords

I'm trying to design an extension to Shamir's Secret Sharing that would allow the participant to specify a password instead of remembering/storing a large integer or binary data. So far, I have two ...
113 views

### Which encryption method supports random reads?

I have a file containing 16-bit samples and I want to encrypt it, but the problem is that I need to be able to read any random 16-bit value from the file, and be to able to decrypt it, without reading ...
527 views

### Inverting the encryption equation of a symmetric cipher

I've just started a cryptography course. I am beginning to understand the concepts (I'm only in week 2) but I just can't get my head around the theories and principles when written as equations. I've ...
99 views

### Is it possible to find a preimage for a reduced size hash?

Given a message $M$ and a 256 bit key $K$, perform HMAC($K$, $M$) with a 256 bit hash function resulting in: $a$ = ...
175 views

### Can I construct a feasible stream cipher out of HMAC and a secure hash algorithm?

I have constructed a stream cipher from a secure hash algorithm and a HMAC. Here is a brief description of the algorithm: Let: (Actually Objective-C styled pseudo code) ...
116 views

### What does it mean to be simultaneously hardcore?

In this paper the term "simultaneously hardcore" is defined as: "We say that a block of bits of $x$ are simultaneously hard-core for a one-way function $f(x)$, if given $f(x)$ they cannot be ...
142 views

### Fast post-processing for broken RDRAND

Let's assume that the Intel RDRAND instruction does not return fully random numbers, e.g. because it has been engineered with a backdoor for the NSA. If the Intel RDRAND instruction is used directly ...
623 views

### Can one implement AES on 4-bit microcontroller?

It is possible to implement AES on 4-bit microcontroller? As far as I know, AES on 8-bit microcontroller are common especially for light weight application such as the RFID. I have yet to come across ...
242 views

### Smart Card Basics

I want to implement some of the basic encryption algorithms on smart card, could any body guide me, how to program a smart card, which tools (hardware and software) i should have ,and are these tools ...
351 views

### Signature schemes for underpowered devices (8bit microcontroller)

I am currently researching into a small scale home automation system, aiming for cost. The system architecture is basically one master and several slaves which are connected in parallel. Recently ...
410 views

### HASH Algorithm for 8 bits MCU

I need to implement the HASH algorithm (MD5 & SHA-1) on an 8 bit MCU. I hear it can only be implemented on 32bit and sometimes 16bits MCU. Is that possible? I will appreciate link where possible. ...
313 views

### How is the key shared in symmetric key cryptography?

Symmetric key cryptography is an encryption system in which the sender and receiver of a message share a single, common key that is used to encrypt and decrypt the message. Is the key public or it is ...
165 views

### How to choose keys for a block cipher?

AES and DES are block ciphers. Mathematically, its the mapping from plaintext space to ciphertext space using the keys i.e. $\{{0,1}\}^k$ x $\{{0,1}\}^l \longrightarrow \{{0,1}\}^l$ I know that these ...
352 views

### Can PBKDF2 be used to create an XOR cipher key to encrypt random plaintext?

I want to encrypt a truly random plaintext (a key file) based on a user password. I'll use PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 to generate an encryption key from the password, but I'm wondering if I even need to ...
115 views

### PKCS1 and blind RSA signatures

Wikipedia's article on RSA blind signatures says that you need to raise the message $m$ to the secret exponent $d$ modulo the public modulus $N$. Implicit within that, it seems to me, is that m needs ...
282 views

### probability of N hash digits colliding

What is the probability of the first N hash digits colliding? for example i made a script that appends the first 5 digits of the file's sha1 hash to the name of the file. So will the probability of ...
297 views

### Proper way of doing encryption and authentication (PBKDF2 + AES)

I'm currently in the planning phase of an authentication and storage-ish service. The client needs a file ("ENCFILE") which he will work with. This file will be encrypted with AES256, and stored on ...
580 views

### What is the ideal cipher model?

What is the ideal cipher model? What assumptions does it make about a block cipher? How does it relate to assuming that my block cipher is a pseudo-random permutation (PRP)? When is the ideal ...
65 views

### what is PFS game?

when i reading about this paper, in the Setup of SIM section 5.2, it says that "According to the definition of PFS game", i wonder what the definition of PFS game ...
104 views

### Precise meaning of various terms related to universal hash functions

I've been reading about universal hashing, but I'm confused by all these different terms and notations. Could someone help me understand the precise meaning or relation between the following terms: ...
38 views

### one-time key, zero IV in stream cipher (e.g. AES-CTR) [duplicate]

Say I am using a random key to construct a stream cipher with, say, AES in CTR mode, which will never be used to encrypt more than one data stream. Is there any advantage, no matter how small, to ...
605 views

### Possible ECC backdoor and its impact on Internet traffic

In a recent article, Bruce Schneier suggested that he prefers classic discrete log crypto over ECC because "I no longer trust the constants. I believe the NSA has manipulated them through their ...
123 views

### Integer factorization based password authentication

After looking at this security issue at DjangoProject, I started to think in a password-based authentication that places the burden of PBKDF2 (or whatever is the hashing function) on the client. So I ...
195 views

### bcrypt and pbkdf2 double hashing

If I want to protect myself from implementation of algorithm issues and inherent design flaws of algorithms in password hashing, what would be most secure way to combine two hashes? ...
240 views

### AES with different modes of operation

I'm taking up a cryptography class and this is for an assignment. We're asked to find the differences between AES/RSA in the different modes of operation vs the one timepad method. From wiki, I can ...
104 views

### Is it dangerous to use plaintext as IV in CBC?

Is it dangerous to use plaintext as IV in CBC? For example: I want to encrypt $p1$, $p2$ with CBC. However I use $p2$ as the IV for CBC purposes. What would be the risk of not using a IV based on ...
2k views

### What is wrong with using SHA1 in digital signatures? Why is a robust hash function needed?

For the purposes of signing and verifying signatures, what is the value of the hash function? Why would it matter if SHA1 is later determined to be easy to break? Since a Public/Private key process ...
138 views

### Privately Sum Values without Dealers, MPC

Suppose $n$ actors each hold a plaintext $p_i$. We wish to find $\sum p_i$, without leaking any information about individual $p_i$. Any actor (or any link in the network) could be controlled by an ...
159 views

### Why does openssl BN_generate_prime return only a fraction of the safe primes within the given bit range?

I went into prime generation issues the last week and eventually calculated 10^7 primes using erik tews safeprimegen python wrapper for openssl. (https://github.com/eriktews/gensafeprime) (System: ...
184 views

### Can the AES encryption and decryption algorithms be described as a polynomial for a specific key?

AES is a block cipher that consists of non-linear and linear parts to provide the Shannon requirements of confusion and diffusion respectively. The linear parts can for sure be described as a ...
2k views

### Difference between linear cryptanalysis and differential cryptanalysis

What is the main difference between linear cryptanalysis and differential cryptanalysis? For example in relation to DES?
200 views

### How can someone predict the bits of a not-so-PRNG like Dual_EC_DRGB?

Given the recent revelations of the NSA engineering a backdoor into the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm - I'm curious, exactly how, given the number of variables involved in generating the random bits could ...
208 views

### Zero knowledge proof of possession of key

Suppose Alice has at some point in time produced ciphertext $C$ from message $M$ with key $k$. Suppose Alice has then passed $C$ to Bob, and also made a commitment to her key $k$ (thanks to ...
405 views

### Break a simple compression function of a cryptographic hash function

I have a very simple compression function, which looks like this in C++: ...
102 views

### Key Refresh in Diffie-Hellman

Assume the case, that two participants have agreed on a key $K=g^{ab} \mod p$ via Diffie Hellman. I have the need to change the key every now and then. The first idea I had was to simply initiate a ...
191 views

### Can I dynamically calculate an appropriate number of iterations for PBKDF2 based on the system time, rather than using a fixed value?

Could you choose the number of PBKDF2 iterations based upon the system time? I've heard a few people recommend that the number of iterations for PBKDF2 should be doubled every two years (starting ...
188 views

### Proof of correct construction of a private key in distributed cryptography

In an exponential ElGamal encryption scheme where the key generation is done in a distributed way among $n$ trustees we have that each trustee $i$ (where $1 \leq i \leq n$): Selects a private key ...