# All Questions

179 views

### When/why is RSA (hybrid) encryption used rather than alternatives?

I've read that RSA is not meant for encrypting large plaintext because: (Are these also true for other public-key encryptions like ElGamal?) It is slow. Padding makes the ciphertext blocks much ...
251 views

### Modular exponentiation on calculator for textbook RSA

How do you encrypt $51$ with public key $(n,e) = (91,23)$ I understand that $c = 51^{23} \bmod 91$. How can I calculate the result on a calculator?
98 views

### Would it be better to use HKDF or SCrypt for deriving a child key?

Okay so I'm trying to derive a child public key from an EC public key. I've come up with a couple ideas and now I'd like to know which is more secure. Mp: The master key pair, this includes a ...
975 views

### Two different keys decrypting same content

is there some generally available algorithm which will encrypt a short string and generate two unique keys so that any of the two can be used to decrypt the message again? It doesn't has to be "super ...
75 views

### Schnorr Ring Signatures - wrong hash results

I don't know if I've placed the question right, It is half maths, half programming. I'm writing Schnorr Ring Signatures on Elliptic Curves in Java and I have a problem. I've found scheme on integers ...
215 views

### Do I understand (below) why Q = dP is easy while finding d is hard

As we all know for discussion of Dual_EC_DBRG, the point on an elliptic curve Q can be calculated from P and some (large) integer d $Q = dP$ And we know that knowledge of Q and P is not sufficient ...
165 views

### Shamir's Secret Scheme : Knowing the threshold

If I am decoding a key by applying shares, is it possible to know when the threshold has been reached, and the secret revealed, without having to be told what the threshold is? Also, is it possible ...
55 views

### What happens if you multiply a point with its order on complete Edwards curves?

I was recently working with some ECC crypto and stumbled across the following phrase on the SafeCurves page: The rational points of a complete Edwards curve are the pairs (x,y) of elements of ...
765 views

### Exchanging encrypted messages, and decrypting without a public key?

I know very little about encryption, but I was hoping someone could shed light on this cipher text exchange scheme I worked out in my head this morning: Bob wants to send Alice a message but doesn't ...
60 views

### Stateless proof-of-work system with 0-roundtrip time

I'm designing an API. To avoid abuse, I need to rate limit the requests somehow, but I don't want to do it per user as it's very easy to create new accounts automatically. I think a proof of work ...
123 views

### How long can a RSA public key be?

If I create an RSA of 4096 bits, what would be the range of the length in bytes of the public key in DER format? Also, will the private key always be exactly 4096 bits (512 bytes)? Does the public ...
106 views

### Comparison Vigènere vs. Monoalphabetic cipher

I have a question for a class of secure communication, but I have no idea about how to proceed in order to answer it. I'll be very grateful to whom replies to me. Assuming that brute force attack ...
228 views

### Why $e>n^{3/2}$ prevents Wiener's attack

Here's the Wiener's attack as I understand it. Suppose $n=pq$ with $q < p < 2q$, and $d < n^{1/4}/3$ where $ed=k\phi(n)+1$ and $e < \phi(n)$. \begin{align*} n-\phi(n) &=n-(p-1)(q-1)...
173 views

### How should I generate secure random numbers deterministically?

I have a 256-bit seed; call it P. From P, I need to derive 219 256-bit numbers deterministically. There's a catch, however: I want to derive them in any order. For example, I might need the 7878th ...
109 views

### Password in first line of file for AES-256 encryption

I'm using openssl with aes-256-cbc encryption to encrypt a file. The password is on the first line of the file and the ...
68 views

### What algorithm to use to rotate values in a predefined manner and be able to decrypt them back to the original?

What is the best practice to accomplish this? For example, let's have an initial value abc123456 and a seed secret_hash. I want ...
57 views

### Problem with this authentication protocol

Consider such authentication protocol: Alice and Bob share a key. Bob sends alice a nonce. Alice encrypts it with shared key and sends to bob. Now assume Alice was successfully authenticated. ...
98 views

### Is it safe to use cipher block sizing instead of padding?

I'm using this kind of technique instead of padding of cipher buffer (here goes pseudo-code): ...
248 views

### What is the most secure ECC Curve?

I have for a while used Koblitz curve (sect571k1), in ECDH and ECDSA. But I have started wonder if it is the most secure. I prefer security over efficiency. So the curve doesn't have to be the most ...
44 views

### How to check the integrity of a key received through mail using symmetric encryption?

I would like to provide access to encrypted data through a cloud service provider, using a pay-as-you-go model. This means that we will sometimes need to revoke a user's access to the data. To ...
71 views

### Encrypt the network adapter mac address so i can get 20 or 25 cipher text length

How do I encrypt a 12 character network adapter mac address so i can get in result with a 20 to 25 cipher text length?
47 views

### SHA256 message bytes

I have been reviewing the documentation for SHA256 and I believe the last two words (64 bits) for each chunk are not used in creating the message schedule. From Wikipedia... Extend the first 16 ...
257 views

### Certificate Signature Algorithm differs from Signature Algorithm Negotiated for Connection

With the upcoming sunsetting of SHA-1 by browsers I was checking signature algorithms for sites I visit. I'm using Firefox 43.0.2 on Windows. I noticed something interesting when I visited the site ...
108 views

### How to find 64 collisions for a hash value?

The first block $M_0$ is one of 64 possible values, whereas the next six blocks $M_1...M_6$ are chosen randomly. The idea is to publish the SHA-1 hash of $M_0...M_6$, wait for the value of $M_0$ to be ...
143 views

### What is the best current way to cryptographically secure databases?

I'm currently working on a proposal for some secure complete system and one of the things currently lacking is the database security. However I don't want to roll my own crypto there and thereby need ...
337 views

### What size should the HMAC key be with SHA-256?

I'm trying to generate a secret key to be used for HMAC SHA-256 signature processing. I've seen many sample of keys with variable length from 32 characters to 96 characters. What is the ironclad rule ...
100 views

### Contrasting Key Rotation Requirements : Asymmetric vs. Symmetric Ciphers

I'm trying to contrast key rotation requirements for asymmetric and symmetric ciphers. In the case of symmetric ciphers, we have the results such as the so called "CBC Theorem" (stated on pg. 24 of ...
81 views

### How do I classify my RSA encryption strength?

So I generated 2 1024 bit prime numbers, I generated N and got a 2048 bit number, does that make my encryption 2048 bit or 1024 bit?
199 views

### RSA Attack, known public key and ciphertext. Can decrypt the message m?

I'm stuck with this problem: Assume Alice and Bob are using RSA to communicate each other. Given Bob's public key $(217,7)$, Alice send the ciphertext $c=53$ to Bob through RSA encryption. Now, Eve ...
1k views

### AES - What is the advantage of a 256-bit key with a 128-bit block cipher? [duplicate]

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the decision to select the 128-bit Rijndael as the AES cipher, even with 192-bit and 256-bit keys. Even with a 256-bit key, you only get 2^128 possible outputs ...
260 views

### Construct IND-CPA secure encryption scheme by combining two given schemes

I have two encryption schemes $\Pi_0, \Pi_1$, at least one of them is IND-CPA secure but I don't know which one. The task is to construct a scheme $\Pi$ that is guaranteed to be CPA secure and to ...
204 views

### AES Inverse Key Schedule

I have a 128-bit input-block and the corresponding cipher-block given. Additionally I have the last round-key given. Is it now possible to get (calculate) the associated cipher-key? I already ...
99 views

### ElGamal in a different group

Can Elgamal be secure in $\bmod {n^2}$? Meaning instead of using a prime order group to use a group where DCR assumption holds?
83 views

### What libraries do people use to implement and evaluate cryptography protocols?

I want to implement this credential system: “Anonymous Credentials Light” (PDF). The implementation would involve some zero-knowledge proof and some exponentiation. For some basic group computations ...
255 views

### How do I get the equivalent strength of an ECC key?

I know how to calculate the comparable symmetric strength of an RSA modulus: calculate the running time for a field sieve. This is how NIST gives approximate symmetric sizes for asymmetric algos in ...
45 views

### Is PKCS#7 padding generated with a pseudo-random-number generator okay?

Let's take this PHP code. We use libsodium and libsodium-php. You have $text,$senderPrivateKey, ...
19 views

### HMQV and MQV group representation attack

Currently reading Krawczyk's HMQV paper https://eprint.iacr.org/2005/176 and trying to follow what he says about the group respetnation attack on MQV: It says that for any group of prime order $q$, ...
72 views

### setting the MGF hash to a different value other than the regular hash with openssl for PSS signatures

In PKCS1's Probabilistic Signature Mode you have the Hash and the MGF Hash. Both appear to be, by default, sha1, with the OpenSSL CLI client, however, I can change it to sha256 with the following: <...
69 views

### PBEWithMD5AndDES Cipher does not check for integrity first?

I am running FindBugs with findsecbugs plugin to scan java code for security issues. I am getting "Cipher With No Integrity" error for a Cipher function implemented with "PBEWithMD5AndDES". The legend ...
142 views

### Theoretical decryption of RSA

I am currently looking into RSA and have some questions. I am interested in theoretical answers, assuming there is infinite time for decryption. Is it necessary to work out the private-key exponent ...
135 views

### Why is Paillier Cryptosystem called probabilistic?

The definition of Paillier Cryptosystem says that it is a probabilistic asymmetric key algorithm for public key cryptography. Can some body explain why it is called "probabilistic"?
66 views

### Is that simple additive homomorphic scheme secure?

I am doing a little cryptography research and stuck with question. Suppose $\bar m$ is a vector of 64-bit numbers. And i want to have an additive homomorphic encryption over them. I choose large (...
111 views

### Transforming SHA-512 into SHA-512/256?

Based on my skimming over FIPS 180-4 it looks like the only difference between SHA-512 and SHA-512/256 is the initial hash value and the fact that the final output is truncated to 256 bits. My ...
3k views

### Signal vs Telegram in terms of protocols?

Some time ago, the question was asked in chat, why MTProto (Telegram's protocol) is supposedly worse than Axolotl (Signal's protocol) as both protocols have been the inventions of their respective ...
89 views

### If the hash of the multiplication is equal to the multiplication of the hash, how can this be used to leverage an attack?

Assume a hash function $H:\left\{0,1\right\}^*\to G$ where $G$ is a group and assume that finding an inverse in $G$ is easy. How can a preimage efficiently be found using the fact that \$H(M_1\cdot ...
196 views

### Zero Knowledge Argument for Subset Sum

What is the currently most efficient (interactive) zero knowledge proof/argument for the subset sum problem? The most recent relevant paper I have found is Efficient Modular NIZK Arguments from Shift ...
132 views

### Guessing the IV for CBC

If I have the key, the ciphertext under AES-CBC and the plaintext, then how can I guess the initialisation vector?
233 views

### Secure, patent-free alternative to NTRU

I'm working on a P2P communications and chat framework, and am looking for a quantum-secure asymmetric key exchange algorithm which I can use to perform a key exchange of an AES-256 bit key. This is ...