# All Questions

811 views

### Is the 64-bit blocksize a fatal issue when encrypting TBs of data with Blowfish CBC?

Crashplan uses 448-bit Blowfish to encrypt the data you send them. The mode used is CBC, keys are multiple use, and IVs are generated with SecureRandom from JCE. Keys are not derived from the ...
248 views

### RSA given q, p and e?

I am given the q, p, and e values for an RSA key, along with an encrypted message. Here are ...
71 views

### Can adding nonces make challenge response authentications weaker?

In a custom protocol we want to replace an aged tiger32 based challenge response authentication. I suggested that we use something existing, so threw HMAC into the room. As per wikipedia it works as: ...
80 views

### side channel attacks on AES

Say you have a web application that's performing AES encryption. What sorts of side channel attacks should one keep an eye out for? Timing attacks affect RSA more than symmetric ciphers in-so-far as ...
422 views

### Is there a string that's hash is equal to itself?

I was wondering if there's any string that has a hash equal to itself, so that – when using any (none specific) hash function – the hash would be equal to that string? so that: ...
110 views

### Session based AES with random key and static salt

I'm currently using aes to encrypt/decrypt messages to and from a web service. When the user establishes a session he sends a random generated secret via rsa public key. This secret is used to ...
229 views

### Are hash functions chaotic?

I'm looking into "bitcoin like" mining processes. Say a security process uses a hash of data as proof that the data was known at some point in time. From what I understand, hash functions are ...
357 views

### Why not use an algorithm's code rather than data itself for one time pads?

Instead of using actual data for one time pads, what would be different if the code for an algorithm was exchanged so that to acquire the pad one would execute the algorithm and use its output? Why ...
75 views

### Need help solving message encrypted on an Enigma machine?

So basically I'm in a class an one problem we were given a while ago was one involving an enigma machine and a few messages. I do not have any idea of how to approach it, and I really need help. The ...
191 views

### Differential Cryptanalysis of FEAL-4

I'm currently carrying out a differential attack on the FEAL-4 algorithm, however I have hit a bit of a wall. Basically I attacked the final round first ($K3$) using the differential characteristic ...
448 views

### Does AES CTR mode store header information in encrypted files?

According to the movable-type.co.uk website, In the ‘counter mode’ used in this implementation, a counter which changes with each block is first encrypted, and the result is bitwise xor’d with the ...
75 views

### advantages of hashing over elliptic curve signatures for a proof of work protocol

I'm trying to create a proof-of-work protocol for a proof-of-concept software, and it's basically something like this: ...
50 views

When plaintext padding is required, there are various commonly-used padding techniques. It seems the two most used approaches are : Always add at least one byte of padding, and have every byte of ...
46 views

### FEAL-4 Wrong outputs of Round Functions

On page 2 of this article, there is example of FEAL-4. At round 2, the input to F (Round Function) is 0x80800000. As F accepts only 4 bytes I divide the input by 2 so that (As I assume the result ...
140 views

### Is this chat protocol safe?

I am in the design phase of a secure chat application at the moment. I am trying to make this as secure as possible. The Serverprovider should not have access to the messagedata. So my idea was the ...
90 views

### What does “nonlinear mapping” mean?

Page 15 of the Keccak reference (PDF) explains that the $Chi$ step mapping of the Keccak-f permutation in Keccak is defined to be “nonlinear mapping”. Without this, the complete permutation would be ...
98 views

### How to guarantee every plaintext is in a rainbow table?

This guide says that for a rainbow table or pre-computed hash chain, you can only get a probability that a plaintext is in a table, not a guarantee. Is there a way to guarantee every possible ...
228 views

### Skein or Keccak stream cipher construction

I am wondering if using Skein or the Keccak hash algorithm in this construction (as a stream cipher) is secure: $H$ = Keccak or Skein hash with a 256 bit output $K$ = The main 256 bit random key, ...
242 views

### What benefits do substitution boxes and permutation boxes offer in DES?

I understand that with more encryption rounds the more complex the ciphertext becomes due to multiple substitutions and permutations. What I don't understand is the purpose of these features. I am ...
244 views

### Cryptographic data structure: sparse array without membership test

I would like a data structure supporting two operations: $\mathsf{set}(k,v)$ and $\mathsf{get}(k)$, with the following properties: $k$ can be any number between $0$ and something impressively large, ...
128 views

### Why don't we use bcrypt and scrypt together?

Everyone is comparing bcrypt to scrypt. Bcrypt is proven, lots of cryptoanalysis and no vulnerabilities so far, but uses very low memory. While scrypt uses a lot of memory, but it's too early in its ...
57 views

### How are key length and size of group elements related?

I am reading a paper on ring signature where the author has mentioned a correlation between key length requirement and size of group elements. Can anyone hint me how he arrived at this conclusion out ...
4k views

### What exactly is a negligible (and non-negligible) function?

The mathematical definition of neglible and non-neglible functions is fairly clear-cut, but why they are important and how they are used in cryptography?
279 views

### What is the difference between “secp…” and “sect…”?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended elliptic curve domain parameters to have names such as “secp…” and “sect…”. For example: “secp224k1” and “sect571k1”. What is ...
143 views

### RC4 key schedule and algorithm design

I've looked up RC4 algorithm and it's seems easy enough but some parts of it seem random to me. In the key schedule part take for example the following part : ...
254 views

### Homomorphic encryption based on XOR

Consider the values $a$ and $b$ are encrypted as $c_1=(a \oplus D)$ and $c_2=(b \oplus D)$. My question is: can we derive $b+a$ from any combination of $c_1$ and $c_2$? Note: I admit that the ...
54 views

### What does OIW stand for

There seem to be many OID's that have been put in the ASN.1 tree that have the following ISO identified organization: OIW. One example is SHA-1 (ElGamal seems to be another): ...
478 views

### Does omitting the first two lines of RC4's pseudo-random generation algorithm weaken the cipher?

A particular educational software program published by a U.S. government agency uses a variant of RC4 to obfuscate its data files (see Stack Overflow question). The variant of RC4 in question is ...
410 views

### Static DH/Static ECDH certificate using OpenSSL

I've been searching for some time and have found no way to create a working certificate and private key pair with a DH or ECDH public key using OpenSSL. Once I do this, I'd like to sign it with an RSA ...
168 views

### Has there been any cryptanalysis of AES under a non-uniformly distributed key?

The standard security property demanded of a blockcipher is that it be a pseudo-random permutation; i.e., given a uniformly random key, the blockcipher should be computationally indistinguishable from ...
125 views

### How can I do minus on plaintexts in the Paillier cryptosystem?

We have $E(a)$, $E(b)$ encrypted under the same Paillier key. As we all know, we can get $E(a+b)$ by calculating $E(a)*E(b)$. But can we get $E(a-b)$, by calculating $E(a)/E(b)$? I tried to ...
323 views

### Single-purpose symmetric encryption scheme for single files

I'm writing a simple password manager program that will encrypt/decrypt a single file (it's size will most likely stay under a few K). This is my initial file format design: ...
108 views

### Question about second preimage resistance of hash function combiner

Let $\Pi=(Gen_1,H_1)$ and $\Pi=(Gen_2,H_2)$ be two hash functions. Define $(Gen, H)$ so that $Gen$ runs $Gen_1$ and $Gen_2$ obtaining $s_1$ and $s_2$ respectively. Then let ...
204 views

### Generating child keys for a hill climb algorithm

As a little pet project I'm writing some code to do a little cryptanalysis. Starting with something simple I have created a hill climbing algorithm for solving a simple substitution cipher. So I ...
151 views

### Correctness vs Completeness

What is the conceptual difference between the definition of correctness and completeness in verifiable cryptographic protocols? They justify that if a statement is correct then the verification should ...
47 views

### Need to choose an ecnryption method [closed]

I've got an homework to implement an encryption algorithm (I can choose what), now we didn't learn about encryptions yet, I guess you can call it pre-class homework or something, I know what is ...
2k views

### How to choose between AES-CCM and AES-GCM for storage volume encryption

We are using the encryption built into Solaris 11 ZFS, which offers the choice between CCM (CBC counter mode) and GCM (Galois counter mode). What are the pros and cons of choosing each of these cipher ...
74 views

### What is the translation for “hash” in french? [closed]

I am doing a French presentation on basic cryptography, and the generation of random numbers. Most terms are easily translatable, but I can't seem to find a word for hash, as in cryptographic hashing, ...
196 views

### Is deniable error-correction possible?

This question came up as I tried to answer an earlier question I asked: cryptographic data structure wanted: sparse array without membership test. I still have not resolved that question to my ...
220 views

### Small Encryption Exponent

I am trying to crack an unpadded RSA set up for a homework. I have public key (R,e) and encrypted message E. ...
2k views

### Strength of MD5 in finding duplicate files

Why are there a lot of duplicate file finder applications which are using MD5 Algorithm? What is the strength of MD5 in terms of searching duplicate files in hard disk or flash driver or any other ...
179 views

### How does Blowfish avoid successful cryptanalysis? [closed]

I have researched the Blowfish algorithm and am curious as to why there exists no effective cryptanalysis for this algorithm as of yet. What basic principles or features allow Blowfish to achieve ...
298 views

### Any weakness when sha256'ing output of sha256, repeatedly?

Is it significantly easier to reverse a sha256 hash if you know that the input was a 32 byte output of sha256? I assume for most outputs of sha256 there will be zero, one or two possible 32 byte ...
145 views

### Triple DES in Firefox - in practice

Reading about triple DES and understanding the principles, I am still curious how Firefox defines their three keys for the encryption/decryption. Suppose that the user saves his passwords in the ...
101 views

### Known-plaintext attack on two-dimensional affine cipher

Problem: We have a two-dimensional affine cipher with $n = 2,\,\,\,\mathcal{P} = \mathcal{C} = {\mathbb{F}_{16}^2}$, where $\mathcal{K} = \{ A,\,\,b\}$ and $b = (0,0)$. The encryption and decryption ...
1k views

### finding collision for truncated SHA1 hash output

Suppose we truncate only 40 bits of sha1 hash output.hence it is insecure.how can we find two message as input which gives first 40 bits of hash as same value i.e we have to find collision for first ...
82 views

### Witness and Commitment in Commitment schemes [closed]

In connection to a commitment scheme, how are witness and commitment different? Are 'Binding' and 'Hiding' properties defined w.r.t. witness and commitment or both?
311 views

### What is h in this RSA variant?

I am trying to implement a proposed improved algorithm of RSA . Here the author has increased the number of exponents. However I am unable to understand what $h$ is in the Key generation step. Can ...
Suppose implement the Shamir secret sharing as following: we select a degree $d$ polynomial $P$ with a zero coefficient of 0, and all other coefficents selected randomly from $Z_p$; and to this ...