# All Questions

107 views

### AES process candidates implementations and usages

There were fifteen candidates in the AES selection and I suppose that Rijndael wasn't the single good algorithm. I know that Camellia is an evolution of E2 candidate and can be used as symetric ...
46 views

### Compression in Symmetric-Encryption?

When using symmetric encryption is it important to compress the data first? I think that compression will make data look "more random" and this might help the ciphertext be harder to crack but I am ...
40 views

### Digital signature in a group chat scenario?

I understand that RSA is great for 1-to-1 digital signature. In the group chat of N people, other than storing and maintaining N public keys, is there a simpler way of authenticating each and everyone ...
72 views

### Fortuna: why are source ID and data length added together with entropy data into the pools

Section 9.5.6 of Cryptography Engineering states that The concatenation [of source number, length of data, and data itself] is then appended to the pool. Why are we including source number and ...
992 views

### Purpose of outer key in HMAC

From what I know, the HMAC constructions has two strength: It's resistant to length extensions Since the key is consumed before the message, the attacker does not know the initial state, preventing ...
106 views

### security in format preserving encryption

In format preserving encryption an attacker knows the format and data type of the plain text. The format of the plain text and cipher text are same. usually cipher text are unreadable form. then how ...
119 views

### Encryption of exe file

I recently started learning cryptography. I have learned some basic stuff. I'm also started learning about pc security, so I was wondering how do hackers use cryptography for bypassing antivirus ...
36 views

### What is the general idea of truncated differential attack on hash functions?

What is the general idea of truncated differential attack on hash functions ? i'm using stream cipher and sponge hash construction and i want to know what is the general idea of differential attack ...
125 views

### Meaning of entropy of a bitstring in NIST SP 800 - 90A

From NIST SP 800 - 90A from January 2012 (see http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-90A/SP800-90A.pdf), page 6: For the purposes of this Recommendation, an n-bit string is said to have ...
148 views

### Supersingular Isogeny Key Exchange Software [closed]

Are there any optimised implementations of the Supersingular Isogeny Key Exchange by Defeo, Jao, and Plut. It seems like this would be a great drop-in replacement for Diffie-Hellman in both OpenSSL ...
217 views

### Inserting a backdoor into a cryptographic hash function

I'm curious as to how a backdoor can be built into a hash function. What might it take the form of? What's probability of getting one that can be backdoored in a way that can actually undermine its ...
23 views

### Blinding value of particular form

I'm working with an implementation that creates a blinding value for RW signatures with the following C++ code: ...
85k views

### How secure is AES-256?

The cipher AES-256 is used among other places in TSL/SSL across the Internet. It's considered among the top ciphers. In theory it's not crackable since the combinations of keys are massive. Although ...
52 views

### Why does UMAC encrypt the output of universal hash function?

UMAC uses a key to choose a random hash function from a family of universal hash functions. The value of the hash function is always encrypted using yet another key, and the resulting ciphertext ...
19 views

### CMSS key sizes flexiprovider

I am study the implementation of the Coronado Merkle Signature Scheme using flexiprovider. I want to verify the Table 1 of its paper. Using the flexiprovider, I have written a example for ...
63 views

### secure multi party protocol for multiplication

I started to learn secure multiplication protocol with oblivious transfer. And i came up with this question, Design a secure 2-bit multiplication involving 4 parties? Can any one suggest an answer for ...
62 views

### Safe way to generate different encrypted output from the “same” plaintext

Imagine I want to send imaginary defcon levels to another party over the internet. I know there are good protocols for this like SSL, but lets say I only have a blackbox tool where I can input an AES ...
120 views

Let $G$ be a cyclic multiplicative group of order $n$. Let $g$ be a (public) generator of $G$. The Diffie-Hellman (DH) problem asks: Given $g^x, g^y\in G$ for $x, y\in \mathbb{Z}^*_n$, to compute ...
73 views

### On countermeasures for replay attacks. Does this one require plaint text password storage?

I was reading this wiki section on the countermeasures against replay attacks and it basically suggests that: If Bob wants to confirm Alice's identity he can send a one-time token (I think it should ...
53 views

### Convolution and catastrophic codes

i'm reading the article of Massey and Sain (here) and i cannot unserstand - what is "foreforward inversion"? I mean There is a description of circles in convolutional codes and a little bit ...
49 views

### Definition of indistinguishable schemes

Let $\mathsf{Exp}_{A,\Pi}(\lambda)$ be some indistinguishability experiment that finally outputs 1 if A outputs $b'$ that satisfies $b' = b$, otherwise 0. Then the textbooks often define the security ...
514 views

### Why are RSA ciphertexts different for the same plaintext?

I am using SpongyCastle for a project in android. I have used RSA to encrypt the data and then decrypt it in another activity, the keys are stored in the shared preferences. I discovered a thing I ...
82 views

### What's the principle to design the functionality under UC framework?

Though I can get the basic idea of UC Framework, namely let the environment cannot distinguish the real protocol with the real adversary and the functionality with the simulator, I am still puzzled in ...
64 views

### Deriving 2 shared secrets from one private key and 2 different public keys

I have a key pair, say $(d, Q)$. I send my public key $Q$ to 2 different people. I also get their public keys $Q_1$ and $Q_2$. Now I can derive 2 shared secrets, $d*Q_1$ and $d*Q_2$. The 2 other ...
793 views

### Is DES slow in hardware or only in software?

I have been reading that DES is slow. Is it only slow in software or slow overall? Also, as far as Triple DES being slow is concerned, is double AES with two 128 bit keys slower than single AES with ...
1k views

### simple algorithm to encrypt/decrypt a text file

I need to write a first program in one language that saves data in a text file, and write a second program in a second language to decrypt that file. The two languages in question don't include any ...
4k views

### ElGamal with elliptic curves

I've searched some information on ECC, but so far I have only found Diffie-Hellman key-exchange implementations using ECC, but I don't want to exchange keys, I want to encrypt & decrypt data like ...
38 views

### Cryptanalysis and Copying encrypted volumes

I just recently concerned myself with cryptography due to Snowden's revelations and there are a few things I cannot really wrap my head around but maybe you can help me with that. I am not a ...
124 views

### Is there a cryptographic algorithm which is immune to side channel attacks?

Is there any cryptographic algorithm immune to side channel attacks based on scan chain? In VLSI point of view.
761 views

### Difference between Pedersen commitment and commitment based on ElGamal

Does any of you know what is the difference between the Pedersen commitment and the commitment that uses the ElGamal encryption scheme? For the sake of completeness, I recall what both of them look ...
38 views

### Join Datasets While Protecting Anonymity

I've run into this issue a couple of times in my career. I'll see if I can explain with an example (please ignore the fact that this is implausible in the real-world). Suppose I sell computers, and I ...
70 views

### Can a combination of encryption algorithms weaken the overall encryption?

Are there any instances where a combination of industry standard encryption algorithms can weaken the overall encryption of the data? As a Naive example using non-standard encryption algorithms, ...
56 views

### Suppose $A$ knows $a$ and $B$ knows $b$, is it possible to efficiently compute $g^{ab}$ without leaking $g^a$ and $g^b$ to each other?

I know the garbled circuit solution, but is there any more efficient method?
55 views

### How is an epsilon of 1/1000 non-negligible? [duplicate]

Lately I've been studying cryptography and in the current course I'm taking we're reviewing statistical tests and how they can be used to determine if a pseudo-random generator is secure or not. ...
5k views

### Is it possible to obtain AES-128 key from a known ciphertext-plaintext pair?

I have a file, which was encrypted with AES-128 in ECB mode. I know the format of the original file and know that all files in this format have the same headers. So, I have an encrypted block and the ...
295 views

### Public-key cryptosystems without poly-time quantum attacks

It's well-known that Shor's algorithm can solve integer factorization, discrete logarithm and discrete log over elliptic curves in cubic time. This implies that cryptosystems like RSA, ElGamal, and ...
185 views

### Does NTRU provide Perfect Forward Secrecy?

Does NTRU provide Perfect Forward Secrecy if the world would use it in an HTTPS connection?
171 views

### Are there any quantum-resistant symmetric encryption schemes?

It seems that quite a few currently available encryption schemes will possibly be broken by quantum computing. Are there any symmetric encryption schemes that will remain unbroken (either because of ...
69 views

### Is “Bit Independence” of SHA-2 hashes secure?

I know bit independence is good in SHA2 function output, but is it truly 100% secure? For example: Y = SHA512(secretKeyNonce256bit) A = first 32ytes / 256bits of Y, used as message encryption key B ...
87 views

### Rationale for use of right-shift (rather than rotate) in SHA-2?

The SHA-2 hashes in FIPS 180 define $\Sigma$ and $\sigma$ bijections of words, with $\Sigma$ used in the round function, and $\sigma$ used in preparing 48 words of message schedule from 16 words of a ...
181 views

### Is it possible to choose which point will have the public key of a given Elliptic Curve?

I am wondering if there is a feasible way that, given a specific elliptic curve (such as secp256r1), I could create a keypair where the public key has a given $x$-coordinate. If it is not possible, is ...
47 views

### What is the proper usage of GCM nonce in TLS1.2?

I have written a program with the help of the bouncy castle for C# library. I am monitoring the traffic which is send between the client and the server and found something (i find) strange. The ...
28 views

### Residue requirements of Rabin-Williams primes?

I'm trying to determine the residue requirements of Rabin-Williams. An older copy of P1363's Public Key Cryptography states the following in Section 8.1.3.2 RW key pairs: An RW public key consists ...
31 views

### Why does P1363 require RW signature with $0 ≤ s < n/2$?

I'm using an older copy of P1363 Public Key Cryptography was used below. It may (or may not) reflect the current state of affairs. P1363 has the following requirement in section 8.2.8 IFSP-RW, p. 45: ...
929 views

### What does an RSA signature look like?

I am using OpenSSL libs to generate signatures. Internally, I learn that a signature is a hash of the message with some padding added to it. I am trying to understand the structure of a signature. If ...
73 views

### Tweaked Square Roots and Rabin-Williams

I'm reading Bernstein's RSA signatures and Rabin–Williams signatures: the state of the art. In section 6, Bernstein states: Recall that Rabin’s system needed to try several values of r, on ...
56 views

### Understanding the PRINCE cipher linear layer

I am struggling to understand how to implement the PRINCE cipher linear layer. (https://eprint.iacr.org/2012/529.pdf) From my understanding I need to multiply the state with M, and with M' in between ...
77 views

### Is the inverse of a point on an elliptic curve over $\mathbb{Z}_p$ always in the group?

I'm working on a zero knowledge proof system that uses ECC over $\mathbb{Z}_p$ (currently using NIST P-256 since mbed TLS doesn't support group operations on Curve25519, but the problem should be ...
It seems like the brain-dead simplest KDF would have a key-stretching structure that is not substantially different from $\text{hash}(S | P | S | P |\dots|S|P)$, where $S$ is a salt and $P$ is a ...