# All Questions

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### what's the advantages of identity-based systems over certificate-based ones?

Actually, I'm not familiar to how identity-based and certificate-based systems work, so ,can anyone give me a detail and comprehensive answer to this question? Moreover, in what environments the ...
140 views

### Why encrypting with private and public keys produce the same result?

Let say $e = 5$, $n = 119$ and $d = 77$. If I encrypt, for example, $m=15$ I get: $$m_1 = m^e=15 ^ 5 \mod 119 = 36\qquad\text{and}\qquad m_2 =m^d= 15 ^ {77} \mod 119 = 36$$. Why? Is it always like ...
132 views

### How can I solve congruence modulo N?

I am trying to solve congruences of the form $$J_A \cdot a^e\equiv 1 \pmod n$$ where $n=pq$ for $p,q$ prime and $\gcd(e,\varphi(n))=\gcd(J_A,n)=1$ Solve for $a\in \mathbb{Z}$, in terms of $n,J_A$ ...
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### How well does breaking multiple DH key exchanges over the same group scale?

Suppose you are running a server with the Diffie-Hellman parameters (so the group G and generator g) generated once. There are ...
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### How can Shamir's method for secret sharing work in the GF(256)?

I have been reading about Shamir's secret sharing, and maybe i completely misunderstand something, but the field is meant to be a prime. However, when i look at the implementations of this algorithm, ...
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### Why does plain RSA not work with big messages ($m>n$)?

From what I can remember, RSA is something like this: Generate 2 distinct prime numbers $p$ and $q$ that have similar bit length. Compute $n=pq$ and $\phi(n)=(p-1)(q-1)$ Compute $e$ such that ...
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### Brute force attack expected running time

I am a bit confused about the expected running times of brute force attacks on different cryptosystems. So let's assume a key size of $2^n$ bits. Symmetric key cryptography: $E(brute)$ = ...
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### Public-key cryptosystems without poly-time quantum attacks

It's well-known that Shor's algorithm can solve integer factorization, discrete logarithm and discrete log over elliptic curves in cubic time. This implies that cryptosystems like RSA, ElGamal, and ...
127 views

### Why is it important to generate a pseudorandom permutation from a pseudorandom function?

Most of the papers on block cipher constructions, especially the ones which discuss constructing block ciphers of arbitrary lengths or small domains, the techniques are designed based on building a ...
141 views

### How does the IV or initial counter increase internally for each block in AES CTR mode?

I am working on Intel AES-NI library and since the AES function is coded using low-level assembly instructions. I could not see how the IV or initial counter increases in CTR mode. In general, how ...
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### How good is using AES CTR mode with initial counter as 0?

Is it advisable to use AES CTR mode with the counter initialized to 0? How good is it in security terms?
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### How does SSL secure the initial handshake?

I'm reading the SSL specs, and it seems that the initial handshake has no authenticity protection at all. What is to prevent, say, an attacker from overwriting the "available ciphers" list with one ...
255 views

### Some cryptography security questions

I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about cryptography. As we are both no experts, I thought that I could better resolve are dispute here :-). My friend said that when he used public ...
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### Hypothetical unknown cipher - security in obscurity?

I'm curious what would happen in the following scenario: Suppose an attacker gets a hold of a cipher-text of sufficiently large length. And suppose he has the means to verify a successful decryption. ...
116 views

### Having 4096 bit keys and short (< 256 byte) messages, can I simply use the key as OTP?

Assumptions: Alice and Bob use (cryptographically secure, hardware-rng generated) 4096 bit keys. Each message is encrypted using a new key; meaning: once a key is used, it's destroyed. Alice and Bob ...
119 views

### Security considerations on “expand 32-byte k”-magic number in the Salsa20 famility of stream ciphers?

I'm currently examining the NaCl library written by Daniel J. Bernstein and I noticed that the library hard codes the sigma: ...
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### How much is slower GCM AES-128 than one of the stream chipher eSTREAM?

Evaluate the speed of the algorithm GCM AES-128 and compare it whith speed of one of the stream chipher in eSTREAM. Can someone give such an assessment?
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### Do we have to use an IV for AES encryption to be FIPS 140-2 compliant?

I asked this question Will our app be FIPS 140-2 compliant if we use our own AES algorithm implementation here before and although there are some different thoughts about this, the general consensus ...
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### How does one use AES block cipher modes of operation?

This is the sequel to my previous question about AES block cipher modes of operation. (See: AES block cipher modes of operation) Now, here is my real problem. I have to use a block cipher with 8 bit ...
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### Which platforms are most vulnerable to Simple Power Analyse Attack

In a "Simple Power Analyse Attack", the difference in power consumption during multiply or square operation is used. In the RSA decryption process with the "Square and Multiply" algorithm, both ...
246 views

### How hard/easy will be to break a SHA-1 or SHA-256 hash if the attacker knows part of the original text?

I'm creating an algorithm to hash some text variables (20/30 characters long) to send them across an insecure channel. I'm not dealing with high security data, so no credits card numbers or any other ...
204 views

### Difference between salted hash and keyed hashing?

A cryptographic salt is additional input other than message itself for a hash function so that it prevents attacker from launching dictionary attacks . Usually the salt is stored along with the hash ...
120 views

### Rijndael: explanation of Rcon on Wikipedia?

I stumbled onto the explanation of Rijndael Rcon on Wikipedia, and I can't follow it. The example for Rcon indicates that Rcon(9) is 0x1b. That could make sense… ...
1k views

### What makes RSA secure by using prime numbers?

I am just learning about the RSA algorithm. Looking at the first two steps: Choose two distinct prime numbers $p$ and $q$. Compute $n = pq$. I have some probably stupid questions: Why do $p$ ...
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I would like to know how much padding OpenSSL algorithms expect.
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### bcrypt and pbkdf2 double hashing

If I want to protect myself from implementation of algorithm issues and inherent design flaws of algorithms in password hashing, what would be most secure way to combine two hashes? ...
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### Meet-in-the-middle with checking complexity

In regards to meet in the middle type attacks, I have been considering the amount of operations in order to successfully find a key given two sets of plaintext / ciphertext pairs. All of the sources I ...
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### Do any (non-hardware) RNGs exist which could be used to create an OTP for crypto purposes?

I've stumbled (jobwise) over a system where small messages (512 Bytes or less) are encrypted and decrypted using a simple XOR using a OTP. That OTP is created using a seed based on the individual user ...
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### Does CBC encryption of a hash provide authenticity?

Given a message $M$ and a cryptographic hash function $H$, let $f(M) = E_K(M || H(M))$ where $E_K$ is AES-128-CBC encryption with PKCS#5 padding. Take $H = \textrm{SHA-256}$ if it matters. In other ...
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### Am I insecurely implementing AES in Python? [closed]

My name is Pat, I'm a rising high school senior interested in Comp Sci. I've taken interest in cryptography following the NSA scandal. Since this is the first time I've ever implemented encryption ...
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I'm writing a client application that wants to store some secret information with a storage service. The client has to authenticate the user with the service and the service should not be able to ...
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### How does an oblivious test of plaintext equality work?

Assume an ElGamal Cryptosystem. Assume a set of three players, $P_1$, $P_2$ and $P_3$. The private key $x$ is shared among the players. The player $P_1$ has a piece of the private key $x_1$, $P_2$ has ...
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### What prevents continued hashing of a key from being used as a cipher when xored with plaintext? [duplicate]

This is just an idea I had while looking through some threads so take it as you will. Given a plaintext of any length and a key that a specific hash function is capable of taking as input(I mention ...
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I'm performing ElGamal encryption algorithm and using the additive homomorphic property so the product of two ciphertexts is the encryption of the sum of the plaintexts. The problem is that I need to ...
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### Offline app authentication - embedding hashed password inside an encrypted file

I am working on an occasionally connected app. To allow the users to authenticate I created a profile which is encrypted and placed on the users machine. The first byte of the file contains the IV ...
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### Is rainbow table attack applicable to any hash?

Typically when rainbow tables are discussed MD5 hash is used as an example. It's not quite clear whether this attack is specific just to MD5 or to a certain subset of hashes or to just any hash ...
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### Is it possible to cryptographically prove when was the last time a ciphertext was decrypted/encrypted?

I want to provide a service that encrypts and decrypts documents and I want to provide the users with proof that I haven't stolen their secret key and read their documents. I know I can prove when a ...
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### How to test if a number is a primitive root?

How to test if a number is a primitive root, assuming the modulus is a prime? And if not? Is it not enough if the number is relatively prime to the modulus or prime?
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### Encrypt a single file, chunk-by-chunk, each chunk using different key (AES)

Encrypt a single file, chunk-by-chunk, each chunk using different key. I am a security newbie (only took 2 security courses before) But currently I am using this encryption method for my Android ...
982 views

### SHA256 HMAC brute force with chosen plaintext attacks

This is a follow up to Is It Possible To Reconstruct a Cryptographic Hash's Key I am using a SHA-256 HMAC function on a single-word input: sha256hmac(privatekey,word) = output. The private key length ...