# All Questions

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### 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 $P, Q$ ...
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### 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. ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### 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 ...
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### Worst case to average case in Ring LWE

I am currently trying to understand this Ring LWE article and I have a question. I don't understand how to apply Lemma 5.11 in order to get the worst case to average case reduction in Lemma 5.12, as ...
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### Block-cipher based vs Hash based MAC

When it comes to MAC algorithms one can have many choices. CBC-MAC, CMAC, PMAC etc are some MAC algorithms that rely on block ciphers (ex AES) to generate a MAC. On the other hand HMAC is very popular ...
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### SHA256_HMAC for deriving session keys using a counter

I need to generate some session keys from a master key that was generated from an ECDH key exchange. The master key is 256 bits and I need 256 bit sessions keys. Is it safe to use SHA256_HMAC with ...
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### How are messages from server secured when using SSL certificate

In case of using SSL the certificate server has a primary key and a public key that is published to all clients - as far as I understood. So in this case when message is encrypted by public key (on ...
104 views

### Base point in Ed25519?

The paper "High-speed high-security signatures" by Bernstein et al. introduces the Edwards curve Ed25519. Concerning the base point $B$, it says that $B$ is the unique point $(x, 4/5)\in E$ for ...
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### Any reason to use Shamir given faster XOR threshold secret sharing algos?

TL;DR: Is the Kurihara algorithm really what it purports to be (dramatically faster but equally secure replacement for Shamir Secret Sharing)? ...
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### If classical ciphers are used with compressed plaintext, how much does it make frequency analysis attack harder?

Classical ciphers, such as Vigenère cipher, are weak and no longer be used. They can be broken by using frequency analysis, that is a well-known fact. But, the frequency analysis often depends on the ...
286 views

### 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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### SSL pinning - how to safely hide the certificate?

We are doing an iPhone app and read multiple forums which says SSL pinning makes it possible to avoid man in the middle as we trust our web services server through the certificate which will be pre ...
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### More efficient and just as secure to sign message hash using Ed25519?

According to the Ed25519 paper, the (potentially long) input message is hashed twice (see Section 4 page 12 steps 1 and 3). This webpage has a nice diagram toward the bottom that illustrates this, ...
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### What is the original SKID3 protocol?

While searching for a mutual authentication protocol I often stumbled upon SKID3. However I encountered different variations of it. The basic structure is the following: (1) A --> B: rA (2) B --> ...
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### Is Cramer-Shoup backdoorable?

We recently had the question whether it's possible to have multiple private keys with one public key for the cramer-shoup cryptosystem. There it was stated that finding such "secondary" private keys ...
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### DSA: Authentication and assurance of authorized parties

When dealing with Asymmetric cryptographic algorithms, usually the sender of the critical data asks the listener for a Public Key for encrypting the data and sending them. This is while the private ...