# All Questions

8k views

### How does TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV help?

After reading through https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-downgrade-scsv-0, I could understand that this option is recommened for use when one has legacy SSL Servers which only support SSLv3. ...
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### Are there valid attacks on full SHA-1?

Google today announced they are sunsetting SHA-1. Its fine by me. But that made me realize I am not keeping up with the research on SHA-1. The Wikipedia page only says Stevens' attack is the most ...
436 views

### Given $n$ bits, how many “truly random” sequences/numbers can be constructed?

Suppose we have $n$ bits, so we can have $2^n$ different bit sequences. Some sequences don't look random, say, all $1$ or $0$. There are also other patterns like $10101010…$, $11001100…$ and such. ...
652 views

### Can I create a fixed length output from a fixed length input?

I use AES256 for various purposes in my app. However, the purpose I am now trying to achieve is the following: Input is for example AU00000001 and I would like a ...
447 views

### Block Ciphers and (Non-)Generic Attacks

I am currently reading through Cryptography Engineering and came across this definition of block cipher security: Definition 2 An attack on a block cipher is a non-generic method of ...
2k views

### Keeping IV secret for AES CFB mode

I'm developing a security/encryption software and I'm using AES CFB (block size: 16 and key size: 32 bytes). I want to know, if I also keep IV (32 bytes) secret like the key itself (32 bytes), would ...
159 views

### Are ideal hashes possible to create?

In a hash function, you map an input of arbitrary length to an output of finite length such that the relationship is one-to-one (or at least that's what you are trying to achieve). Hence, isn't it ...
596 views

### Why must curve25519 shared secret be hashed?

When using the curve25519 DH function, D.J. Bernstein recommends hashing the shared secret before using it as a session key for a symmetric block cipher. Why is that? Hashing won't increase the ...
5k views

### How is the key shared in symmetric key cryptography?

Symmetric key cryptography is an encryption system in which the sender and receiver of a message share a single, common key that is used to encrypt and decrypt the message. Is the key public or it is ...
266 views

### Can the AES encryption and decryption algorithms be described as a polynomial for a specific key?

AES is a block cipher that consists of non-linear and linear parts to provide the Shannon requirements of confusion and diffusion respectively. The linear parts can for sure be described as a ...
413 views

### Relation between attack and attack model for signatures

I would like to know: What is the relationship between an attack and an attack model. For example, let $\Pi$ be the Lamport signature scheme. This signature has its security based on any one-way ...
532 views

### Why are elliptic curves better than cyclic groups?

The set of points of an elliptic curve over a finite field is isomorphic to the direct product of two cyclic groups (i.e. $E(F_{p^n}) \cong Z_{s} \times Z_{t})$. What is the advantage of representing ...
1k views

### Tamper-proofing log files

Problem Overview I want to securely store log files so the contents are secret, and they can't be modified without detection. The files will be encrypted using authenticated encryption (AES in GCM ...
689 views

### Signature schemes for underpowered devices (8bit microcontroller)

I am currently researching into a small scale home automation system, aiming for cost. The system architecture is basically one master and several slaves which are connected in parallel. Recently ...
1k views

### BCrypt vs Key Stretching MD5

Ars technica posted an article about the latest in cyber warfare from the stuxnet crew. They key stretched MD5 by iterating it 10,000 times. It seems to be effective at handicapping HashCat's gpu ...
I'm testing an implementation of Bitcoin, which uses the curve Secp256k1 for ECDSA, and I want to see how it handles the point at infinity ($0$) if present in a signature. For example, r could be the ...