# All Questions

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### Does AES(x || x) provide secure message authentication when message fits in a single block?

Suppose I have x = <64 bits of data>. I build a 128 bit block $P = x || x$, and transmit a message $M = AES(K, P)$. The receiver has the same $K$. The ...
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### Is there any good reason to chain HMACs in this manner?

I am looking at some decompiled Java code from an Android app. As a security measure, a signature is passed as a parameter to a number of JSON requests. The method that generates the signature is as ...
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### How far is public-key crypto involved in “banking world”? [closed]

I would like to know how public key cryptography is used in the banking world. I am not looking for big details, but for example: Are banking card embedding a private key used for signing ...
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### Encrypt with K1, K2 and decrypt in opposite with K2, K1 [duplicate]

When using symmetric cipher, does the following statement holds: E(x, k) means encrypting x with key k in ECB mode ...
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### How does a CA send a digital certificate? [migrated]

I would like to know after approving the Certificate signing request, does the Certificate Authority send the Digital certificate to the applicant by converting the digital certificate to PEM format ...
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### One cipher to rule them all?

I learned from Dan Boneh's course that many cryptographic primitives (prngs, stream ciphers, hashes, hmac, key derivation functions) can be built from just one a block cipher or PRF. For example, the ...
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### RSA-PSS salt size in certificate

In RFC 4055, the signature RSAPSS algorithm has the following ASN 1 parameters: ...
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### one complex password as a “seed” for localy generated per-service passwords

I've stumbled upon a project that suggests a way of having to remember one password, from which a “per-service password” could be generated by salting the service name using scrypt. What could be a ...
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### ElGamal against chosen ciphertext attacks

In Hoffstein, Pipher, and Silverman's book An Introduction to Mathematical Cryptography, the authors make the following remark: An attack in which Eve has access to an oracle that decrypts ...
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### Why we need ECDSA when we have ECDH?

ECDSA and ECDH give us the following methods: ...
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### How to crack SHA256 only letters

I recently created a program that hashes a password using SHA256 and potentially using salt. How can I crack that if I know that the password only contains lowercase letters?
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### Are all stream-ciphers IND-CPA?

A stream cipher usually generates a stream of pseudo-random bits which get XORed with the plaintext to form the ciphertext. The stream is generated using a given IV / nonce and a secret key. CTR-mode ...
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### Reversing Rotation + XOR

I have this cypher which is as follows : Take 2 numbers : A=1011 and B=1010 if the ith bit of A is 1 then shift B i times to the left. So in the end you will get ...
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### Diffe-Helman Exchange result is always 1

I watched a video on Khan Academy explaining the Diffe-Hellman exchange. When I try to do an example problem, I get 1 all the time. Does the generator and prime modulus (or base on Wikipedia) have to ...
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### Why have round constants in hashes?

This may seem like crypto 101, but why do hash functions like SHA2 and Whirlpool have round constants that are absorbed into their respective states? I can understand that in a cipher you need some ...
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### What is the difference between a PRF and a PRF+?

What is the difference between a PRF and a PRF+? I am understanding them to mean the same thing, but I imagine that is because I don't understand their differences. The IKE RFC defines a PRF as: ...
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### different feistel words in key size

I have confusion on Feistel word in key size. Means, "what is the meaning of key size with different feistel word ?" What does m=2,3,4 represent? Where m represent different size of feistel word or ...
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### SPI security of FE1 scheme

I have a question about security of FE1(Page 16-18) in paper "format preserving encryption". Can anyone explain me, why we are allowed to replace PRF with random function in security proof? And also, ...
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### SHA-256 exhaustive search

How do I calculate the number of computations needed to break SHA256 in case we are using it for safely storing passwords (together with a salt)? Are there any formulas that can be employed? For ...
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### Could a crypto system that uses non-FIPS crypto but then upgrades complete to FIPS be FIPS certified?

I know most people around here (including myself) are anti-FIPS, but I have a FIPS related question. Could a crypto system that is not FIPS, e.g. one based on primitives like Curve25519, achieve FIPS ...