# All Questions

193 views

### Why can an RSA signature be authenticated ONLY with the signer's public key?

I'm an undergraduate Math student currently taking a cryptology course. I have a question about the RSA signature authentication mechanism. An RSA signature can be authenticated with the public key ...
442 views

### How can I implement the elliptic curve MOV attack myself?

I understand and have implemented elliptic curve signatures in Python without the use of libraries like Sage, and would like to implement the MOV attack against certain weak types of elliptic curves. ...
708 views

### Increasing number of rounds in AES

AES-128 requires 10 rounds ( AES Description, Wikipedia ) However Bruce Schneier has recommended AES-128 use 16 rounds ( Schneier on Security: New Attack on AES ) Could that be implemented as two ...
1k views

### HMAC-SHA1 input size

I know that the HMAC is a message authentication code that uses a cryptographic key in conjunction with a hash function (SHA1 , MD5, etc.). The HMAC output is 160 bits for HMAC-SHA160 and 256 bits for ...
815 views

### Could quantum computers “break” symmetric crypto-systems (e.g. AES)?

These days I'm reading about quantum computing and quantum cryptography which I've found extremely interesting. Well, I also read some blog posts of Bruce Schneier talking about how quantum computers ...
383 views

### Injecting salt into PyCrypto KDF - useful?

I have noted some sources indicate that when using a KDF like PBKDF2 (alternatively) some advocate injecting the salt at the time of execution - like this: ...
209 views

### What should I be aware of when implementing algorithms myself?

I plan to build my own crypto library. The project will be primarily for me to learn (and if useful for no other purpose, that is fine). In the past I have implemented a few hashes, and AES quite a ...
366 views

### Why is feed-forward mechanism used in hash functions?

The compression function of SHA-1 when used in Davies-Meyer mode adds its input to the chaining values at the final step. For the first message block, the IV is used as the input and in the next step, ...
533 views

### In the Paillier cryptosystem, is there a method to judge whether an encrypted number is less than 0 (without the private key)

Or, is there a cryptosystem that is both order-perserving and additive homomorphic?
795 views

### Is there a security analysis of CryptDB?

It's interesting to see critical thinking being applied to CryptDB in contrast to all the hoopla around it here. CryptDB is not a major theoretical breakthrough but potpourri of technologies to make ...
1k views

### How can I break a Vigenère cipher with partial plain text?

I have an exercise to do regarding Vigenère encryption. I've got the cipher text: WNZTNVIEEGTJYKRRWYUELWNZTNV and a partial plain text: ...
6k views

### What algorithm could/should be used to encrypt files for storage on untrusted servers?

I need an encryption algorithm that works fast on large files and doesn't increase the file size. It should use a key to encrypt/decrypt data. The files will be sent using REST and over HTTPS, but a ...
596 views

### When do we need composite order groups for bilinear maps and when prime order?

Why we need bilinear groups of composite order? What's the special security property of the composite order group in comparison with one of prime order? To put it in another way when do we need ...
780 views

### Can I use PBKDF2 for authentication and decryption?

I want to store a hash for authenticating a password. I also want to use the same password for decryption. Can I use PBKDF2 for both? (I plan to use different salts for the authentication and the ...
247 views

### Are there any differences between PIR, oblivious transfer and differential privacy?

I am trying to make a taxonomy of different purposes of some cryptographic protocols. Generally speaking the purpose of PIR, oblivious transfer and differential privacy it sounds like being invented ...
2k views

### Why does CBC decryption with a wrong IV still give readable results?

While developing some code that uses the .NET AesManaged algorithm, I made some mistakes but was surprised at the results. My encryption was correct. I was generating a random IV block and writing ...
923 views

### Questions about Key Derivation Functions

My understanding is that a KDF is a function that takes a master secret and generates multiple keys. It is secure as long as the keys are "independent". If this is true, the following definition would ...
299 views

### Why does RSA give better security on longer messages?

I am trying to understand the notion of RSA security. Choosing a public exponent where $e = 3$ facilitates the calculations, considering that it is secure if the plaintext or message is long. If the ...
983 views

### Passwords with same SALT. What does this mean?

If the same SALT is used for many passwords on a Linux server, in what way is that a security risk? Does the mean, that a user (which can change his own password) can calculate other users passwords? ...
322 views

### How safe is it to derive MAC key from a hashed password?

Imagine I have a blob that I want to encrypt-then-MAC. Now, what I can realistically ask my users for (out of UX considerations) is just an encryption password. Naturally, I bcrypt original password ...
808 views

### Malleability of ElGamal and Hashed ElGamal

Question: Suppose A encrypts a number $x$ which indicates her bid on a contract, using ElGamal encryption. Say that the encryption of $x$ produces a ciphertext $c$. Explain how E can modify $c$ to ...
306 views

### Derived Shared Key vs Distinct Keys?

I've seen a lot of 2-party applications that derive a shared key from distinct keys created by each party. Why is this technique employed? Would it not be better to use those two distinct keys for ...
290 views

### Secure method for encrypting 32 byte private keys

I am using 32 byte EC private keys on the client side of a web application. These keys should be securely stored on a server database. The keys should be encrypted (AES) before being sent to the ...
121 views

### How to hash similar strings to the same hash value?

Suppose that $s_1$ and $s_2$ are two stings that have a small hamming distance. Is there a preimage resistant "hash" function ($H$) that can map them to the same value i.e., $H(s_1) = H(s_2)$?
91 views

### Why is it good to split a CTR-mode counter into nonce and counter?

When discussing the CTR mode of block ciphers, Wikipedia says the following: Simply adding or XORing the nonce and counter into a single value would completely break the security under a ...
195 views

### Customizable Crypto Algorithms in Hardware

Several companies offer customized cryptographic algorithms, for example Crypto AG (www.crypto.ch/en/company): The individually created customer algorithms are unknown to anyone else and are not ...
134 views

### Ciphertext and tag size and IV transmission with AES in GCM mode

I am completely new to using AES in GCM mode of operation, and I have not a very large background in cryptography as well. I have been playing with OpenSSL trying to encrypt and decrypt some messages. ...
155 views

### Why have round constants in hashes?

This may seem like basic crypto knowledge, but why do hash functions like SHA-2 and Whirlpool have round constants that are absorbed into their respective states? I can understand that in a cipher ...
309 views

### Brute-force attack given small search-space and hash prefix

Suppose we have a value $secret which is a random 56-bit (7-byte) string. Suppose an adversary wishes to discover$secret. The ...
128 views

### Non adjacent form of an integer is unique

I have tried to look up the proof for NAF (Non-adjacent form) being unique for every integer, but as far as I have seen, textbooks only mention it as a property of NAF, but no proof is given. Also I ...
312 views

### Reusing the random exponent for ElGamal encryption with different plaintexts

In the basic ElGamal encryption scheme, we encrypt a message $m$ as $(g^r, h^r m)$, where $g$ is the group generator and $h$ is the public key of the recipient. If the sender has another message $m'$ ...
208 views

### Signing Files vs. Signing File Hashes

What are the security pitfalls that may occur by signing a list of file hashes, versus signing individual files? In short, the security trade-offs between: ...
303 views

### Where are the ChaCha20 test vectors/examples?

I see in the Salsa20 specification there are test examples throughout the document to help an implementer make sure every function works as designed. Consequently the whole algorithm would work ...
245 views

### Share encrypted files without giving master key

Imagine I have four files I want to encrypt. I have master key, and from that master key I derive four keys, one for each file: ...
1k views

### SHA-1 collisions - what about practical attacks?

I understand the theoretical problem with hash collision but when it comes to practice, I get very confused. Suppose a attacker would like to forge a certificate (or any kind of structured piece of ...
4k views

### Diffie-Hellman and man-in-the-middle attacks

See here for the man-in-the-middle attack on Diffie-Hellman that I'm concerned about: What is Diffie-Hellman? How do we combat this? I have two questions: Is one solution for both Alice and Bob ...
294 views

### How does Random Oracle and Standard Model differ? [duplicate]

I am new to Crypto field. Many papers are boasting of not using Random Oracle model. Instead, those prove security in Standard Model. I am surprised how do these models differ. Can anyone please ...
138 views

### What's the consequence of having a short IV? Is one mode better in that case?

I've read lots about null-length IVs being bad for most modes. In a scenario where passing a 128-bit IV along with each message isn't feasible, how would generating the IV from a smaller passed-along ...
594 views

### What characters are valid in PGP encrypted and signed messages?

What characters may be present in a PGP encrypted message or a PGP signature? For example, do encrypted messages only use the Roman alphabet + some numbers and symbols? Can the character set be ...
6k views

### The modulus of RSA public key

I am studying the RSA cryptosystem. The public key consists of $(n, e)$, the modulus (product of two large primes), and the encryption exponent. I want to separate the modulus $n$ and exponent $e$. A ...
706 views

### Is there a standard way to use a nonce with HMAC?

Many protocols use HMAC on messages that include a nonce, but they don't seem to do it in a consistent way. For example, in OAuth the nonce is in the middle of an URL-encoded key-value string, like ...
2k views

### RSA example-calculation: Public Key = Private Key (e = d)

I am a bit confused. I just calculated manually the single steps of RSA for an implementation with small numbers and suddenly $d$ was equal $e$. Please help me understand what I am doing wrong. ...
480 views

### Update to “Cryptographic Right Answers”

I'm a big fan of Colin Percival's "Cryptographic Right Answers" post. This was written in 2009, which is a long time ago in Internet years. Is the advice still valid or, if not, can someone point me ...
175 views

### Understanding hash entropy

I have been told that one advantage of using a hash function is that it spreads entropy over all input bits. But it also seems to be true that a bad hash algorithm can make things less random. But how ...
197 views

### Is the strength of RSA over quadratic or other cyclotomic fields as strong as over the integers?

If we assume the strength of RSA is based on the difficulty of factoring (which I know we can't guarantee) and we compose the modulus of some other quadratic ring that is a unique factorization domain ...
348 views

### Why are collision attacks important when talking about MAC schemes?

I'm reading Ferguson, Schneier, and Kouno's Cryptography Engineering, and it has a section on MACs. It discusses different types of MACs, but it seems to claim that to acheive 128-bit level security, ...
1k views

### Randomness test question from FIPS 140-1 and comparison with 140-2

In FIPS 140-1 there are 4 statistical random number generator tests (The Monobit Test, The Poker Test, The Runs Test and The Long Runs Test. Then FIPS 140-2 came along and supposedly tightened the ...
241 views

### Long-term data protection, storage of old encrypted traffic and quantum cryptocalipse

Tony Arcieri makes an interesting point in his Imperfect Forward Secrecy article which basically boils down to: large entities such as NSA are storing encrypted internet traffic, also what's to stop ...