# All Questions

656 views

### Does a public key absolutely need to be used to initiate an encrypted session?

I am a software developer working on an application with the .NET platform. This application needs to provide a secure connection and encrypt all data between the client and the server. It is a ...
1k views

### Approach towards anonymous e-voting

I want to implement an internet-based e-voting system. Voters shall be able to cast their vote for one out of n possible candidates. Each candidate has his own ballot-box kept by and at a trustworthy ...
422 views

### Is there a way to generate sound one-time pads out of public information?

Is there a way to 'mangle' a public data-source (for example, the current date in YYYYMMDD or the top New York Times headline) to form a one-time pad that will sufficiently hide the pad's source? ...
2k views

### Why we can't implement AES 512 key size?

Out of curiosity why we can't implement AES 512 key size? Please explain somehow i can understand! I'm not an expert.
353 views

### AES-ECB as an authentication mechanism

ECB is considered to be insecure when used for confidentiality because identical plaintext result with identical ciphertext. But what if we use ECB for authentication? Assume A wants to transmit an ...
978 views

### Increased CRC collision probability when adding bits to input message

The Scenario I have a message string I need to transport over a wireless network that may be unreliable. This message string is about 100 bits long, and is packaged with an 8-bit CRC. When the ...
502 views

### security of Felix cipher

I just find this pencil and paper cipher 'Felix' and I want to know how secure it is? EDIT From http://web.archive.org/web/20110825142054/http://topcat.hypermart.net/papers/felix.txt Felix a ...
570 views

### Complexity of arithmetic in a finite field?

I am wondering what the complexities are of adding/subtracting and muliplying/dividing numbers in a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. I need it to understand an article I am reading. Thank you
294 views

### If Bob steals Alice's private key, how exactly would he read her encrypted documents?

So Bob grabs Alice's secret key when she isn't looking and her encrypted files, doesn't he need to know her passphrase to read her files? What I am reading is that no he does not need it but as far ...
320 views

### What are the vulnerabilities of this homemade encryption algorithm?

I decided to program a relatively trivial encryption algorithm in my downtime. This algorithm takes a seed from a user (supports floating point seeds), and then adds 1 to the seed for every iteration ...
941 views

### Can a computationally unbounded adversary break any public-key encryption scheme?

Assume there is a public-key encryption scheme $(KeyGen, Enc, Dec)$ with perfect correctness (i.e., for all messages M and valid key-pairs (PK,SK), we have $Dec_{SK}(Enc_{PK}(M))=M$). Will there ...
469 views

### Verify product without revealing multipliers

Situation: Several participants contribute encrypted random numbers. These numbers will be used to generate community-agreed random (by simple multiplication). Question: Is there any way to detect ...
564 views

### What is the SSL private key file format?

I was researching about how to encrypt with RSA. I understood everything but not the format of the private keys. In the phpseclib (RSA in PHP), you can import your private key (private.key format) ...
325 views

### Advantages of 64-bit CPU smartphone

Advantages of having a 64-bit CPU vs 32-Bit CPU smartphone … 3. Complex Encryption. Improved Security: 64-Bit can process incredibly large numbers allowing you to better encrypt data against ...
2k views

### What characters does AES output?

From what I understand after testing the Crypto-JS file here: http://crypto-js.googlecode.com/svn/tags/3.1.2/build/rollups/aes.js AES creates encrypted strings that contained letters, both ...
346 views

### Block cipher fixed points

A block cipher is a bijective map from the set of possible plaintexts to the set of ciphertexts, which are the same size and might as well be considered the same thing: $\theta: S\to S$. In this there ...
321 views

### Is it possible to work out the hash algorithm from a list of known message-hash pairs?

For example, in my situation I know hash(20) = 486e9638177faf1f34e49910491b77af. I also know the hashes for all values from 0 to 20. Is it possible to work out the ...
1k views

### Which is more secure using a CSPRNG for a One-time pad, or AES?

In reading about the One-time pad it appears to need truly random key for the pad. Since true random values are not practical to generate this presents a problem (thus making One-time pad less ...
1k views

### Why can't the IV be predictable when its said it doesn't need to be a secret?

I heard multiple times not to reuse the same IV and IV should be random but doesn't need to be secret. I also heard if the IV is something like sequential numbers or something predictable I should ...
2k views

### Different implementations of SHA1, which one is correct?

I have noticed that different implementations of SHA1 give different results. As I'm currently programming my own SHA1 implementation (in MATLAB / GNU Octave), I wonder which one should I follow? ...
366 views

### Is the new preprint “An Algorithm For Factoring Integers” by Yingpu Deng and Yanbin Pan worth reading?

I just discovered on the eprint server of the IACR the paper mentioned in the title. Scanning quickly over the paper I didn't find anything spectacular, so I doubt that their new(?) approach will be ...
752 views

### breaking fully homomorphic encryption schemes

Fully homomorphic encryption schemes allow one to evaluate any arbitrary computation over encrypted data. Intuitively this seems to be too weak, irrespective of how we achieve this. An adversary who ...
633 views

### How can I avoid calculating with huge numbers when implementing the RSA algorithm

There is 26-letter English alphabet. There is the plain text: TRYAGAINLATER. I need to encrypt it by RSA algorithm with the public key 53. What is the ciphertext? ...
272 views

### Is double hashing collision resistant?

Double hashing can surely provide more security than only one layer of hashing but does that necessarily mean it is more collision resistant? This question in a more mathematical form: If $H$ is a ...
2k views

### Why is Serpent faster than AES in this benchmark?

I have a laptop without the AES-NI CPU instructions but with SSE4.1. I'm using Linux and tried the (in-memory) cryptsetup benchmark to get the rough tendency which returned: ...
256 views

### Is prime regeneration necessary for every new session using a Diffie-Hellman key exchange?

As I understand it, bruteforcing a Diffie-Hellman generated secret key takes $P-1$ attempts to crack the shared secret, where $P$ is a very large prime used for modulus. If your $P$ is quite large, ...
537 views

### Stopping timing attacks on AES: Why is it important to prevent the OS from interrupting the AES computation?

I read the paper Cache-timing attacks on AES (by Daniel J. Bernstein), but I don't seem to understand everything. The author dedicates a long section on how to prevent the OS to interrupt an AES ...
512 views

### How to avoid a chicken and egg scenario with encrypting passwords?

I am working on application that allows users to upload files containing company data and then share those files with a list of other users that have specific roles within the system. I want to ...
502 views

### Can I pre-define the points in Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm

With Shamir's secret sharing is it possible to pre-define the points returned by the algorithm? For simplicity if I have (k, n) where k=2, and n=4, and I have the points X,Y,Z, and Q. Can I create ...
1k views

### How do public key rings work in cryptographic applications?

I am wondering if there are any links to articles or resources available online, or explanations that you can give, that would help me to understand the concept of a public key ring, and why I might ...
1k views

### How can I break REDSHIRT / REDSHIRT2 encryption?

Recently, a user on Gaming.SE asked a question about whether the user password in the video game Uplink could be modified after being initially set. The game does not contain an option to change the ...
346 views

### Why not use an algorithm's code rather than data itself for one time pads?

Instead of using actual data for one time pads, what would be different if the code for an algorithm was exchanged so that to acquire the pad one would execute the algorithm and use its output? Why ...
293 views

### Can you help with that definition for a CCA?

The following is a definition taken from Introduction to Modern Cryptography by Katz and Lindell. I'm having a hard time understanding some basic concepts! Can you please help me? ...
513 views

### Why does applying 56-bit DES twice only give 57 bits of security? [duplicate]

Given two 56-bit keys, $k_1$ and $k_2$, why does $E_{k_1}(E_{k_2}(M))$ only give 57 bits of security? So basically I'm unsure why it only gives 57 bits of security; I understand that one key will ...
816 views

### 128 bit 3DES Key and AES Key: what's the difference?

Apologies if this is really basic but I couldn't find the answer to this. I have heard some Info Sec colleagues talking about creating an AES key in preference to a DES or 3DES key but I don't know ...
295 views