# All Questions

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### What does “a 15360-bit RSA key is the equivalent to a 256-bit symmetric key” mean?

NIST key management guidelines suggest that 15360-bit RSA keys are equivalent in strength to 256-bit symmetric keys. If a 15360-bit RSA key is the equivalent to a 256-bit symmetric key, does that mean ...
279 views

### Why aren't zero-knowledge proofs used for authentication in practice?

I read on Wikipedia that zero-knowledge proofs are not used for authentication in practice. Instead (I think) the server is entrusted with seeing a password in plaintext form, which it should then add ...
118 views

### Secure method of encrypting data within a database

I'm designing a program which makes queries to a database stored locally which could potentially contain a lot of sensitive information. As such the information must be kept secure as possible from ...
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### Same 64-bit preimage resistance security for SipHash and SHA-512/64?

If I have to chose a 64 bit preimage resistant hash function; will there be any difference in security between SipHash and SHA-512/64 (SHA-512 truncated to 64 bits)? How long will it take an ...
352 views

### Is (AES-)GCM parallelizable?

I recentely faced the issue of random access decryption while AES-GCM was being used. I said this person that the underlying CTR should allow parallelization but I have no idea how authentication ...
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### What kind of operations are involved in NTRU?

I've read that lattice based algorithms involve matrix-vector products. Is this the case of the NTRU algorithm? When I've read the details of the NTRU algorithm, I've seen products of polynoms. Where ...
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### Are there simpler FHE methods than Craig Gentry's original paper?

Craig Gentry's 2010 paper on FHE is very cool, and I'm planning on implementing a basic proof of concept FHE. I was wondering though, are there any simpler methods that have been discovered since ...
138 views

### Is there a scheme that allows to use RSA based challenge response protocol limited to signing only 8 bytes to create a secure signature of any data?

I have a tiny device that has a challenge-response authentication mechanism where the device signs 8 bytes of any data with it's internal 2048 bit RSA key. I would like to be able to certify any data ...
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### What is the meaning of h(r) in this protocol?

Could somebody tell me what the meaning is of $h(r)$ in the protocol below? ‎‎$A‎\leftarrow‎{B}\quad:{h(r)‎‎}{,B}{,P{_A(r,B)}}‎ \\A‎\rightarrow‎{B}\quad:r$
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### Standard format to encode AES cipher and random IV

As far as I understood, a secret key (same length as CBC block size) and an initialization vector (IV) are needed to decrypt a AES-256-CBC encrypted string. As the IV should better be random, it has ...
80 views

### Is the key schedule of Serpent a circle?

The creation of the prekeys for Serpent works by XORing some previous values with a counter and a fixed value. Every word is 32 bits big and 4 words form a round key (after applying a S-Box, but this ...
157 views

### Does the key schedule function need to be a one-way function?

For some key schedule $e_n(e_{n-1}(k))$ (where $e_{n-1}(k)$ is the result of the previous round) , does $e$ need to be a one-way function? In the case of DES or Rijndael the key schedule doesn't ...
1k views

### What is an active S-Box?

I don't understand what an active s-box is (in reference of design criteria 8 of the DES). Because according to DES, all 8 s-boxes are used every round. But this is not what active means. So my ...
110 views

### Chopping off SHA256 entropy?

I have a NoSQL key-value database. I want to insert couple million of records to it. For the key generation, I'm, using a prefix (something like data-one-) and ...
1k views

### Are there any specific requirements for the function $F$ in a Feistel cipher?

In a Feistel cipher (as shown below), it seems that the security of the cipher would be entirely dependent upon the function $F$. What requirements on $F$ are necessary for a secure Feistel cipher? Is ...
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### Does unbalancing a feistel cipher always improve security? Does it improve security at all?

So according to Wikipedia unbalanced feistel ciphers provide greater provable security. Specifically, they state: The Thorp shuffle is an extreme case of an unbalanced Feistel cipher in which one ...
129 views

### Secret Sharing Encryption

Suppose Alice shares a secret block cipher key, $K_{AB}$ with Bob, and a different secret block cipher key, $K_{AC}$ with Charlie. Describe a method for Alice to encrypt an m block message such that ...
135 views

### How to generate new LWE samples

Assume we are given a small fixed number of LWE samples with secret $s$ and error $e$, where the error distribution is taken so that the LWE problem is hard. My question: How can one further ...
60 views

### Pseudorandom functions: how are functions stored?

I am wondering about the setup for testing if a function family is pseudorandom. We step into a room, and query the black box with $x$, which yields $f(x)$, etc... We don't know if $f$ is a random ...
207 views

### Is SHA-1 safe for signing ECDHE parameters?

Is using the SHA-1 algorithm insecure for hashing the ephemeral ECDH public key in the signed_params structure? There are some worrying articles about using SHA-1: ...
57 views

### Can one construct OTPs without using XOR?

The typical version of the one-time-pad (OTP) uses XOR to combine a key pad and a message. ($c=m\oplus k$) Now let's assume some other scenarios which have the practical application of blinding. Do ...
435 views

### Is SHA-1 still practically secure under specific scenarios?

It is conjectured that SHA-1 has been broken from the "research" perspective but no in real world. That is that there is an algebraic attack that explores weaknesses on its algebraic construction. The ...
60 views

### Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman in a symmetric crypto context

I'd like forward secrecy in a case where the two sides have a shared long-term symmetric key. I intend to use AES in GCM. It looks like ephemeral Diffie-Hellman is the best way to generate the session ...
68 views

### Difference between RSA-617 and RSA-2048

according to wikipedia: RSA-617 has 617 decimal digits (2,048 bits). RSA-2048 has 617 decimal digits (2,048 bits). What is the main difference between them?
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I've found a way to complete a task which I'd solve with passwords or by sending keys over the wire (otherwise) by using RSA's homomorphic property. I'm restricted to RSA (any padding; for hardware ...
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### Trying to understand the constant factors (19 and 38) in Ed25519 ref10 function 'fe_mul'

I would like to transpose the Ed25519 ref10 implementation to a similar twisted Edwards curve that is based on another prime, in order to have the same speed optimizations in place for the new curve. ...
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### Is hashing data with dynamic keys still worth effort?

some years ago it took long time to "decrypt" hashes because they took slow cpu to brute force. Nowadays they use graphic cards for stuff like this and can do this most time in less than 20 Minutes ...
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### How do we generate AES S-BOX?

I am new to AES and I am too much confused about the generation of S-box in AES. I don't have any idea of $GF(2)^8$ field and how the things are happening around. Please answer this question with a ...
119 views

### Security impact of signing small data using RSA

I have an application which consists of a client and a server. Both have a pair of public and private key (RSA). For communication, both sign their messages and send them to the other part. So a ...
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### What are the current known weaknesses/attacks on quantum key distribution?

I am writing a paper on the implementation of QKD in the future. I want to know if there are any viable attacks on the BB84 protocol or QKD in general? I know of the Photon Number Splitting attack or ...
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### Can convergent encryption be turned into deterministic authenticated encryption with HMAC?

If you take a convergent encryption algorithm and replace the hash $H$ used to derive the key with HMAC-H, keyed with a secret key $k'$, does the resulting algorithm provide you with deterministic ...
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### How to generate a large random number from smaller ones?

I'm using a function randInt that takes as input two integers as upper and lower bounds (inclusive) and outputs a pseudorandom number in that interval. ...
73 views

### Parameter choice Supersingular Isogeny DH

In “Towards quantum-resistant cryptosystems from supersingular elliptic curve isogenies” by DeFeo, Jao and Plut (PDF), the public parameters are defined as: Supersingular curve $E$, and bases $P, Q$ ...
263 views

### How should I interpret this note on diffusion of the internal state of a PRNG?

This question is about Tyche, a non-cryptographic PRNG. While the PRNG is not cryptographic the analysis and this question surely is heavily involved with cryptography, so I think it's on-topic here. ...
63 views

### How can I calculate the probability of collisions of a hashing algorithm?

I'm pulling a “Dave” and I'm designing my own hashing algorithm. Not that I intend to use it, I'm not certifiable or anything, I just want the challenge of creating something. I'm not going to get ...
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### Modular Multiplicative Inverse and RSA?

In trying to understand this specific part of the RSA algorithm, I found this online... I understand by Euler's theorem, that $d^{\phi(n)}$ = 1 mod $n$ What I don't understand is the substitution ...
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### What are the problems of IKEv1 aggressive mode (compared to IKEv1 main mode or IKEv2)?

I would like to seek confirmation/clarification of the following statements about IKE: IKEv1 aggressive mode is supposed to be “insecure” if used with PSK. But as far as I can see, correct (or more ...
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### How to calculate the avalanche effect in aes-256?

I am a beginner in cryptography. I'm testing AES-128 bit key, AES-256 bit key, and Camellia-256 bit key. I'm using AES-256, 9 character salt, CBC mode, PKCS #5 padding, and the ciphertext using ...
242 views

### Unblind a RSA blinded signature

I have blinded $m = 16$ with $r= 13$, $e = 7$ and $n = 209$. This resulted in $m' = 464$, which led to a $s' = 8$. Now, I want to unblind this $s'$ by using $s = s' \times r^{-1}$ but im stuck at ...
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### Cryptographic random numbers for key generation

I am trying to understand how a cryptographic library works (for example, one that provides assymetric encryption such as RSA), but I'm running into a few problems about the key-generation. There are ...
3k views

### Is it possible to validate a Public Key in RSA?

If I have a 1024-bit number, and someone is telling me that it is in fact a valid RSA public key, is there any way I can quickly validate that it is indeed so (without cracking RSA)? (I suppose I am ...
109 views

### How can I compare two hash algorithms?

In studying the algorithms of cryptographic hash functions, I have tried out a few (educated) modifications to the code for academic purposes only. For example, I modified the algorithm by applying an ...
351 views

### Blowfish ECB mode: Tools for known-plaintext attack?

I'm currently dealing with multiple blowfish-encrypted files that share the same key. All are encrypted using ECB mode judging from their appearance: I don't know what the key is but I know 64 byte ...
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### Understanding a faulty Needam-Schroeder protocol

Give this mutual-authentication protocol (along with the attack) in which Alice wants to communicate with Bob, I can't understand how the attack works. A chooses $N$ (nonce) and sends to C (trusted ...
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### Factors of the group order to secure against Pohlig-Hellman

I am looking into the security of Diffie-Hellman and the discrete log in general. To make sure an attacker can not use Pohlig-Hellman to solve the discrete log quickly we need to make sure that the ...
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### Padding size with a CBC Block cipher in TLS

I'm currently looking at an encrypted Client Finished message in Wireshark from a TLS session. The cipher suite that was agreed on in previous messages was ...
120 views

### Why develop Edward curve formulas that deviate from unification?

Edward curves were considered initially because they provide a unified formula for both doubling and addition, thus having inherent side-channel resistance. But a lot of work has been done recently ...
262 views

### Order of MACing and Encrypting in TLS

I've been working through how TLS1.0 works, and think I've basically understood most of it. One thing I can't seem to find a explanation of though is the order in which MACing and encrypting should ...