# All Questions

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### What is the theoretical and practical status of mental poker?

I'm able to find a lot of scattered papers on the development of mental poker since RSA proposed the initial solution but no recent report (i.e. after 2005) on what is the status of the problem, eg: ...
4k views

### Why is CBC with predictable IV considered insecure against chosen-plaintext attack?

I just learned that using CBC encryption with an IV which is predictable is not secure. From what I understand, using certain plain texts, and then guessing the IV that it uses, the attacker can ...
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### How will Cryptography be changed by Quantum Computing?

I realise this isn't a 'yes or no' question, and I apologise for asking something that could be seen as a discussion thread, but I had to ask. I'm currently doing an EPQ in CS (specifically how QC ...
2k views

### Is there any strong enough pen-and-paper or mind cipher?

Some ciphers are talked about at “Is there a secure cryptosystem that can be performed mentally?”, but (at the time of writing) I don't see an answer. Are they strong enough, or are non-computer ...
4k views

### Why hash or salt when signing? [duplicate]

I've seen an example of how to sign using RSA. Besides the signing itself (s = m^d mod n) it also hashes and adds an IV. Why is that needed?
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### In the SHA hash algorithm, why is the message always padded?

In the SHA hash algorithm the message is always padded, even if initially the correct length without padding; the padding is of the form "1" followed by the necessary number of 0s. Why is it ...
6k views

### Is it possible to derive the encryption method from encrypted text?

Is it possible to identify the encryption method, or at least rule out some of them, by looking at the encrypted text? For example, if you have 3 encrypted strings where the first 10 characters are ...
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### Is digest=HASH(HASH(a)+HASH(b)) equivalent to publishing two digests?

Is combining digests (created using a hash function) using arithmetic addition, and then hashing and publishing the result, less secure than publishing the set of digests? Does the answer change if ...
3k views

### “Weaknesses” in SHA-256d?

According to this answer, "SHA-256d" was proposed in one of the Ferguson/Schneier books like so: SHA-256d(x) = SHA-256(SHA-256(x)) Apparently, the motivation for ...
8k views

### What is the difference between CSPRNG and PRNG?

What is the difference between CSPRNG and PRNG? Is there performance differential between them? For example: We use PRNG for key generation which is very expensive and CSPRNG for IV/nonce in block ...
2k views

### Would the ability to efficiently find Discrete Logs have any impact on the security of RSA?

This answer makes the claim that the Discrete Log problem and RSA are independent from a security perspective. RSA labs makes a similar statement: The discrete logarithm problem bears the same ...
3k views

### How were the number of rounds for different key sizes of AES selected?

The number of AES rounds increases with the key length. Why increase the number of rounds at all, and how were these round counts chosen?
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### Do these new insights into prime numbers affect encryption security?

Quanta Magazine reports: Two mathematicians have uncovered a simple, previously unnoticed property of prime numbers [...]. Prime numbers, it seems, have decided preferences about the final digits ...
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### What are the requirements of a nonce?

Sometimes I read that a nonce has to be a random number but I disagree. A nonce just can't repeat itself. You could increase in by 1 every time if you are sure it would never repeat.
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### Two mutually untrusted parties want to exchange data: how to ensure each one gets the data it needs?

I am trying to come up with what could maybe be a novel algorithm for an application I am writing. Client A has a file fA. Client B has file fB. Each party is untrustworthy and will try to rip off the ...
1k views

### Theoretical pi-based stream cipher

Let's pretend that all digits of pi are known and arbitrarily long sequences of digits are trivial to get. Further, some mathematician proves that there are no patterns in pi. We could create a stream ...
680 views

### How were the AES key and block length subsets of Rijndael selected?

My intuition tells me it's a trade off between speed and security, but how did the standardisation process select these three seemingly arbitrary key lengths (namely, AES-128, AES-192, AES-256).
2k views

### Luby-Rackoff theorem confusion

The Luby-Rackoff theorem states that if a round function is a secure pseudorandom function (PRF) then 3 rounds are sufficient to make the block cipher a pseudorandom permutation (PRP). PRPs are ...
839 views

### Is RSA encryption of a cryptographic hash with a private key the same as signature generation?

It is often said that RSA encryption with a private key is the same as signing (signature generation). Will RSA encryption with a private key over a cryptographic hash give the same result as ...
306 views

### Is there a format preserving cryptographically secure hash?

I want a way to 'scramble' strings (like words, names) in a predictable way but I don't ever want to (myself or anyone else) be able to 'unscramble' the strings. I found that perhaps what I am ...
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### For a given plaintext-ciphertext pair, how many valid AES keys are there?

For $PT\in \mathbb{M}$ and $CT\in \mathbb{C}$, let $\mathbb{F}=\{f|f:\mathbb{M}\rightarrow\mathbb{C}\}$ be the collection of all functions from $\mathbb{M}$ to $\mathbb{C}$. Then AES encryption under ...
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### How can I instantiate a generalized hash function?

I've come across a bunch of "strange" hash function notations, such as the following ones and now I don't know how to choose / instantiate them. Can you please explain me what this notation means and ...
2k 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 ...
351 views

### Building a combined encryption scheme from two encryption schemes that's secure if at least on of them is secure

Any thoughts on how this can be done? Let $\Pi_1 = (\mathrm{Gen}_1, \mathrm{Enc}_1, \mathrm{Dec}_1)$ and $\Pi_2 = (\mathrm{Gen}_2, \mathrm{Enc}_2, \mathrm{Dec}_2)$ be two encryption schemes for ...