# All Questions

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### Why does a hacker need to crack the key to an encrypted file, instead of just brute forcing the password? [closed]

Most encryption softwares don't seem to have a trial limit. So why would a hacker need to crack the key, or even need to know the salt value, if he can just brute force the 6-8 digit password?
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### Terminology for secret sharing

To my understanding, there are two "approaches" to t out of n threshold encryption. In both of them, n shares are given to different shareholders, and at least t of them must agree to "proceed". "...
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### Can gnupg master key decrypt something encrypted with subkey?

When creating gpg subkeys, the master key signs and certifies that a subkey belongs to that master. That's ok, but, can master key decrypt something encrypted by a subkey? I guess no, but I want to be ...
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### gnupg master key with certificate and authentication capabilities

After researching about GPG and Smartcards I came to a dilemma. The usual setup I've seen more widely is a master key (with SC capabilities) and 3 subkeys (with S, E, A each): ...
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### How to calculate secret key size of a CP-ABE scheme

How can I calculate the real size of key in a CP-ABE scheme. For example, I have this GSWV scheme: Fuchun Guo, Willy Susilo, Duncan Wong, Vijay Varadharajan: CP-ABE with constant-size keys for ...
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### Can RSA (theoretically) be used as a block cipher?

Assume AES gets a devastating attack making it unusable. Is it possible to use RSA in a secure way that can encrypt data in bulk? I can't see how RSA (assuming OAEP padding) can be used in normal ...
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### What will browser show when a user access website and website present certificate of some other domain with same top level domain [closed]

For example, User tries to access a.example.com and server presents abc.example.com with a.example.com not in SANs list. Will it be just a warning or an error?
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### Usage of 3DES for single block

I have a device, HASP, which has functionality to encrypt 8 byte data using 3DES in ECB mode, with three different keys, I am interested how secure is this? I know it might not be most secure, but how ...
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### Is it possible to perform a rudimentary asymmetric key encryption algorithm by hand?

I have at least three, distinct motivations for having a simple way to use asymmetric key encryption by hand or without modern computers. First, I was recently demonstrating to a 12-year-old how ...
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### Attacks on MICKEY 2.0 Stream Cipher

I would like to know if there are any known attacks, besides from side-channel attacks (differential fault attack, correlation power analysis, template attack), against MICKEY 2.0 or MICKEY-128 2.0. ...
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### Many consecutive hashes to slow down brute force attack?

I've heard that hash algorithms like bcrypt are more secure because they take longer to complete, and therefore take much longer to brute force, without a ...
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### Diffie-Hellman when $p$ and $g$ are pre-agreed and hidden from Eve

During a regular Diffie–Hellman public key exchange, Alice and Bob agree to use a prime number $p$ and a base $g$… which are both made public and are therefore also assumed to be known by Eve. Alice ...
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### Choosing which is public vs private key

When I calculate two RSA keys, what if anything, would make any difference which I call the public vs which I call the private key?
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### How can a lattice attack be applied to ECDSA signatures?

The aim is to check if it is possible to break the ECDSA cryptosystem under the following criteria. Suppose that each ECDSA signature is generated by using the GLV method for point multiplication (...
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### Why are recomended RSA key lengths so high? [duplicate]

I was checking for authoritative sources to back up my recommendation of a minimum RSA key length of 1024 and was shocked to find that NIST 800-56Br1 and FIPS 186-4 both recommend at least 2048 bits ...
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### Do Carter–Wegman MACs allow key reuse if the MAC tag is kept secret?

Poly1305 (and GHASH) are secure authenticators, but only for one use. Thus, nonce reuse in Poly1305-AES, ChaCha20-Poly1305, and AES-GCM all reveal the authentication key. However, my understanding ...
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### How does hash speed vary based on string length?

Surprisingly I have not been able to find an answer to this question on Google. If I have a function that is based on any of the popular hashing algorithms used for password generation, by what ...
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### Unclear about the importance of Initialization Vectors

I was reading about Ruby ciphers and found this: Although the key is generally a random value, too, it is a bad choice as an IV. There are elaborate ways how an attacker can take advantage of ...
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### Are there any real protocols secure in the random oracle model that have been broken in practice?

Has any protocol ever been proven secure in the random oracle model and then broken in practice, despite the use of a good hash function in the actual implementation?
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### Is there any place where I can find test vectors for point addition and doubling of ECC?

I want to extensively test my implementation of point addition and doubling. I have only one test vector with me. I need more values to test. In the web, I could find test vectors only for key pair ...
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### Are there unreachable MD5 hashes? [duplicate]

Are there any known MD5 hashes that can´t occure, no matter what (finite) input is taken? Thanks
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In the Mac-forge experiment, the adversary is given access to a tag-generation oracle, which generates a tag for each message given by the adversary. The adversary's task is to generate a valid tag on ...
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### Is F5 still a viable steganography algorithm? [closed]

I am currently developing a steganography application and have been studying the F5 algorithm by Westfeld. I keep on seeing from various literature and open source projects (e.g. from GitHub) that it ...
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### How to encode a message to MD5?

I have faced a problem to understand MD5 algorithm.My question is weather the original input message is converted to binary value in MD5 before using the input message as parameter in four Feistel ...
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### Homomorphism and Zero Knowledge in FIPS 140-2 compliant systems

I am analyzing a system that needs to be at least level 3 FIPS 140-2 compliant. The system may leverage from homomorphic and Zero Knowledge constructs, but, as far as I can see, the algorithms ...
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### How do they implement MAC in TLS?

I recently read questions about "MAC then Encrypt/Encrypt then MAC" which made me curious about how they actually use the algorithm. MAC only calculated once either case (according to what I read). ...
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### Are there any test vectors for the CMS content type AuthEnvelopedData (for AES-GCM)?

I am looking for CMS AuthEnvelopedData test vectors for AES-GCM mode. I haven’t seen any ready-to-use test vectors for it. There are test vectors for AES-GCM mode but not for its CMS support. I even ...
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### Question on 3DES keys

The official NIST publication I saw says for federal applications 3DES with three keys should be used. I have such questions: what does it mean federal? Does it mean for industrial applications that ...
Suppose I have a Feistel cipher structure that has $16$ rounds. I come up with $8$ subkeys $k_1,k_2,...,k_8$ to be used for the first $8$ rounds and then assign the rest of the keys so that \$k_9=k_8,...