All Questions

599 views

How can mega store my login details and still be secure?

I understand how Mega's encryption works. For a quick summary of all those in the future looking for an answer on this... here is how it works: Upon first signing up for an account you make a ...
345 views

Why do we assume un-security of communication channel on every cryptography system

While reading about a few cryptographic systems, I noticed that we always assume the communication channel is not secured. Why is this assumption made? And, why the effort is being put into designing ...
229 views

Crypto puzzle as proof of randomness?

I need an untrusted client to generate a random public/private keypair (in particular, an Ed25519 keypair, which can be generated really fast), but I'm only allowed to see the public key. The ...
541 views

Blind quantum computing and fully homomorphic encryption

I am somewhat familiar with current research on fully homomorphic enryption schemes and their possible application to Cloud computing. I've just noticed (somewhat late) that a marketing-savvy group ...
626 views

Reason(s) for using a KDF for encryption keys

Assuming I already have a 256-key (32 char password) for AES encryption, comprised of random alpha-numeric characters and punctuation (95 possible ascii chars), generated by a decent PRNG, is there ...
176 views

Does zero-padding the secret in Shamir's sharing scheme increase security?

When performed in binary Galois fields $GF_{2^n}$, Shamir's threshold secret sharing scheme produces shares that are each the same bit-size as the secret. Though the scheme is "perfectly secure" in ...
157 views

iterated discrete log problem

Consider the following problem: given $g_1 \ldots g_i,h_1 \ldots h_i \in G$, $\forall i$ find $x_i$ such that $g_i^{x_i}=h_i$ For $i=1$ this is the discrete log problem and is assumed to to have ...
711 views

Implementing AES in C++: 4x4 Array of unint8_t, or 4x1 array of uint32_t?

I'm implementing AES in C++, and, inspired by the way words are handled in SHA, I decided this time to handle the state as a one dimensional array of 4byte unsigned integers as opposed to a two ...
1k views

Cryptanalysis of Linear Feedback Shift Registers

It is well known that simple m-sequence linear feedback shift registers have a linear algebraic structure and therefore the generator seed can easily be deduced using the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm. ...
835 views

Why do we need in RSA the modulus to be product of 2 primes?

I think I roughly understand how the RSA alorithm is working. However, I don't understand why we need the $N$, which we use as a modulus, to be $pq$ for some large primes $p, q$. I vaguely know it ...
267 views

Is just a bit of random, “fully random”?

I understand that hashing a datetime is a pseudo-random number, and not good in a security context. But what about hashing a datetime plus a truly-random but constant string (just a string that an ...
461 views

Multiple Hash Functions that work in either nesting

Are there any hashing functions that, if two are used in conjunction (with the same salts) will return the same response regardless of ordering? I.e. are there hash-functions $H_1$, $H_2$ such that ...
464 views

How does the cyclic attack on RSA work?

I am trying to get the idea of cyclic attacks againts assymetric RSA encryption. Taken from Handbook of applied cryptography . Let $k$ be a positive integer such that c^{(e^{k})} = c\mod n ...
2k views

Digital Signatures, Standard Hash Functions and MACs

I'm studying Hash functions and Digital Signatures in sequence, and came up with some doubts about their usage. First of all: What is the difference between hashing a document and signing it? And ...
642 views

Do Cryptographic Hashing Algorithms operate only on Integers?

Do all the Cryptographic hashing algorithms operate only on integers (32 bit or 64 bit)? Is there any operation performed on Floating Point Numbers as well? The reason I ask this is because I read ...
1k views

Difficulty of breaking RSA for a given key size

Is it true that breaking a 1024-bit RSA key is as difficult as breaking a 128 bit symmetric key (e.g. AES)? I know that breaking a RSA key is equivalent to factoring the modulus $N$. To factor it, you ...
3k views

Big-O Notation: Encryption Algorithms

I am currently completing a dissertation concerning the encryption of data through a variety of cryptographic algorithms. I have spent much time reading journals and papers but as yet have been ...
283 views

What challenge should I use in a challenge-response proof-of-work?

In order to guard against denial-of-service attacks, I want to require clients to do some work (more work than the server does fulfilling the request) before talking to them. Client connects Server ...
417 views

What is the best way to send two floating point numbers to a server on the internet from a small device such as an arduino?

I was thinking about sending some sensitive data (temperature) from an arduino (AVR 8-bit processor) to a server on the internet. But I would like to make sure that it would not be possible for Eve ...
4k views

How to distribute session keys in public key cryptography?

In public key cryptography we can also use session keys which are symmetric. How do the sender (say a server) provides this session key information to its clients? If the sender (here server) ...
562 views

What is the difference between online and offline brute force attacks?

I read some papers saying a certain scheme is secure for offline brute force attacks, but vulnerable to online brute force attacks. I wonder the difference between the online and offline brute force ...
276 views

Weaker alternative to Ed25519?

For me, the main advantages of Ed25519 are that it avoids patents (by computing in one dimension) and that it is fast. However, the 128bit security of Ed25519 is sometimes too strong to comply with ...
301 views

Plaintext XOR'd with keylength-shifted plaintext

While solving a (easy...) Project Euler cipher problem this week I repeatedly saw instructions for breaking ciphers after identifying the keylength as: 'shift the ciphertext by that key length and ...
202 views

Statistical properties of hash functions when calculating modulo

When using SHA-1 to hash an input, the result is a pseudo-random number in the numeric ID space $\{0\dots2^{160}-1\}$. Do I loose any statistical property in the result if I use modulo to restrict the ...
145 views

Are there some problems to use pseudo-random number generator in Smart Card?

A Smart Card is a kind of secure device, with limited storage capacity and computational resource. If we use a Pseudo-Random Number Generator to generate random numbers in a Smart Card, then is there ...
227 views

Simple proof that shows AES is not a uniform permutation on any n-bit string?

Is there a simple proof that shows AES is not a uniform permutation on any $n$-bit string? Since I'm just starting with crypto, I'd like to see a simple yet elegant proof for the said property. ...
213 views

Test Vectors for ciphers

While implementing ciphers (/hash functions, ...), I often face this problem: Where to find test vectors for it; so that I can guarantee my program is correct. It is generally a tedious job to find ...
219 views

Security equivalent to Diffie–Hellman problem?

I've been doing the security proof for one of my Theorem. Basically, given $g^a$, $g^b$, $g^{cb}$, $g$ and $c$ as known values. Is the problem of computing $g^{acb^{-1}}$ equivalent to the Diffie ...
540 views

Generate a unique 64 bit numeric database key from a string without collisions at $2^{32}$ birthday threshold?

What is the best way to generate a unique 64 bit numeric database key from a string? For example: if the string is a URL, you could generate a 64 bit key using SipHash or by truncating a SHA256 hash ...
224 views

Does ECIES imply authenticity?

Assume: Alice and Bob both generate separate EC keypairs Alice obtains Bob's public key, and together with her private key creates a shared secret key Alice encrypts a message using the shared key ...
153 views

Advantages to knowing $p$ and $q$ in Blum Blum Shub?

Do you gain any advantage by knowing the factorization of $M$ (over just knowing $M$ itself) in the Blum Blum Shub generator? The only advantage I see is being able to calculate the $i$-th number ...
933 views

ECDSA vs RSA: Performance on Android platform and surprising results

For our privacy-preserving protocol, an encrypted channel is established. In order to protect our system from man-in-the-middle attacks, signature-based approach is used. After we've implemented it ...
624 views

RSA and ECDSA performances

Signature algorithms with elliptic curves have small output sizes compared to RSA for the same level of security. What about the processing time to generate a signature ? I've seen figures giving ...
309 views

security in the standard model → random oracle model?

Can a protocol proved secure in the standard model be considered secure in the random oracle model?
340 views

Making my steganography code more hard to detect and crack

I'm doing a college project about digital image steganography on MATLAB. So far i've been able to get the help i needed from cool guys on stackoverflow but i now need to make my algorithm more hard to ...
82 views

Signing the hash of a key with the same key

Given a private signature key sk and a public signature key SK, does revealing sk(H(SK)) (in ...
638 views

Why is the discrete logarithm problem assumed to be hard?

This might be a quite stupid question: since a naive brute force algorithm to solve the discrete logarithm problem will only take O(n) time for a group G with order ...
192 views

Cryptographically secure product keys

I am looking for a scheme to generate and validate cryptographically secure product keys. My requirements are: Unforgeable. It must be impossible (or at least very hard) for users to forge a product ...
382 views

Maximal-length LFSR with $n$ bits when the factorization of $2^n-1$ is unavailable?

There's a classical method to efficiently test if a LFSR with $n$ bits is maximal-length (or equivalently, if the feedback polynomial is primitive), when the factorization of $2^n-1$ is available. Do ...
115 views

What's the alternative should PKI collapse?

Premises - please check it and critique if necessary: If factoring the products of large numbers suddenly becomes simple, PKI goes up in smoke. Is this correct? If it is correct, it seems to me ...
196 views

counting points on elliptic curve

Given an elliptic curve with equation $y^2=x^3+ax+b$, and i want to find the number of points $(a,b)\in E(\mathbb{F}_p)$ where the polynomial has repeated roots, how do i do it? I have an intuition it ...
110 views

Can we build authenticated encryption using Feistel Networks?

Most of the encryption modes of Feistel Networks especially the ones used to build fixed length block ciphers just provide confidentiality . Can we build authenticated encryption using Feistel ...
136 views

How can two (or more) parties share and agree upon a common random seed?

I really don't know how to call this simple problem: Two (or more) parties need to establish a common (non-secret) value to be used as a seed for a deterministic RNG. The only requirement is that each ...
657 views

Subtracting a point in elliptic curve cryptography?

I've had lots of practice adding points for my crypto class. However I've run into a situation where I need to subtract two points for decryption: ...
276 views

Does encrypting a hash of the message yield a secure MAC?

Is $mac = enc(hash(x))$ a secure MAC for hash = SHA256 and enc AES in CBC mode or ECB mode. Normally AES-CBC is malleable. But in this case I use a hash function for the one-way property. For ...
445 views

Why does NaCl's crypto_secretbox for xsalsa20-poly1305 require the first 32 bytes to be zero?

The NaCl web site says this is a requirement of the API, but its seems more than just an API issue. It means the first 32 bytes of the first salsa20 block are effectively ignored. I didn't see ...
522 views

Encoding information in packet lengths to actively sidestep encryption

If you've only got an encrypted data channel can you actively sidestep the encryption and communicate with an outside party who can see the data but cannot decrypt it? Yes - if you can find some ...
309 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? ...