# All Questions

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### Why, or when, to use an Initialization Vector?

i'm trying to figure out when an Intialization Vector (IV) should be used. There are anecdotal reports that WEP was broken because of weak IV's. It's also claimed that if two pieces of plaintext are ...
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### What authentication techniques can be used by QKD Systems?

As it is well known that QKD systems are prone to simple MITM attacks… what authentication techniques are being used in QKD to prevent those attacks in practice?
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### Dimension of Encryption of a linearly dependent set of plaintexts

Suppose I have an encryption scheme of the form $E(P)=C$ where $P$ is the plaintext and belongs in $\{0,1\}^N$, $C$ the ciphertext which belongs to $\{0,1\}^M$ and the encryption is performed under ...
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### Is a continuous stream of encrypted data embedded in garbage more or less secure than only encrypting the data?

Consider a communication channel that needs to be secure (Encryption can not use full "volume" encryption, since future messages are not known). Would it be better to only transmit encrypted ...
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### How does a key wrapping like RFC 3394 secure my cryptographic keys?

So I'm messing around in the BouncyCastle library with the RFC 3394 AES Key Wrap engine and I'm trying to understand the benefit of it. The problem I'm running into is how to store keys securely on a ...
586 views

### How can one break a monoalphbetic substitution chipher at pseudorandom text?

Does anybody know how to break monoalphbetic substitution cipher, if it is applied to some pseudorandom text (for example to some surrogate key filed in a database)? Let us assume that we have only ...
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### Yao's Garbled Circuit- Why does Alice need to rearrange the circuit?

My understanding of Yao's Garbled Circuit (based mostly on this summary) is as follows: Alice creates a garbled circuit based on the function f to be computed. She then hard-codes her input into the ...
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### How can bit slicing be constant time, when Mix Columns is in the cipher

I'm reading about bit-slicing techniques, and one thing about it caught my mind. The strength with bit sliced implementations are (apart from that they are fast) that they are running in constant ...
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### Password-based encryption with small typos allowed

I'm trying to write some software to encrypt and decrypt some messages with a password. I am trying to implement it using this post: How can I securely convert a "string" password to a key used in ...
87 views

### What is the recommended format/notation for crypto design?

Is there a recommended format or formal notation for documenting the combination of symmetric and asymmetric encryption, key derivation and other algorithms (and their inputs and outputs) that I think ...
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### How does a company like Apple keep its keys safe? [closed]

Whatever key is used to sign new iOS updates (for example) must be incredibly well-protected. How does a huge corporation like Apple keep those 4096 bits safe?! Same goes for SSL keys for websites ...
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### Why does “gpg --export-secret-keys” ask for a password?

What is it about the architecture of GPG that requires me to enter the password of the secret key when I export it with "gpg --export-secret-keys"? I would expect that gpg can just copy the relevant ...
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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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### Research for video game: Novice cryptography concepts [closed]

I'm making a video game which has some basic cryptography as a main base for puzzle design. I'm hoping players will get great puzzle challenge and learn a few cryptography concepts through playing the ...
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### Can the backdoor in Dual_EC_DRBG be used to create a public key stream cipher?

Dual_EC_DRBG has the property that if $Q = e\cdot P$, someone who knows $e$ can break the PRNG. This seems to lead to a public-key stream cipher: Alice chooses a random $P, e$, where $P$ is a ...
185 views

### Security of encrypting many short values with AES in GCM mode

We intend to encrypt certain values in a database which holds personal information such as addresses so as to prevent data leakage should the database be compromised. The intention is that each field ...
158 views

### Understanding ransomware – What makes plain-text-attacks or brute-forcing so hard?

Say I have four files. Two are completely unencrypted, while the other two are the exact same files other than that they have been encrypted with (apparently) the same public key (via a ransomware ...
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### What is an impure NIST true random number generator?

I'm working on a true random number generator, and I came across this phrase in the American NIST guide, in section 6.4.1 Non-Approved Conditioning Components: The entropy rate provided shall be ...
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### What is the difference between MACTripleDES and TripleDES?

I was asked to encrypt/decrypt a string using MACTripleDES. Is there any difference between MACTripleDES and TripleDES? If, where exactly is the difference between both?
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### Is there an asymmetric encryption algorithm where the public key cannot be derived from the private key

Is there an encryption algorithm that will produce a public key and a private key such that the public key cannot be generated using the private key. For example, if the private key is compromised ...
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### Does rsa-oaep provide or not plaintext integrity in addition to confidentiality?

My own understanding (possibly wrong of course) of RSA-OAEP encryption scheme is that it provides plaintext integrity (in addition to confidentiality) due to MGF function which for encryption ...
461 views

### Can elliptic curve (25519) be used to encrypt file?

This is probably a simple question, but I haven't been able to see it stated anywhere. Is it possible to directly encrypt a file (of any length) with some form of EC using the 25519 curve. I know ...
111 views

### How does encryption work in elliptic curve cryptography?

So I think I understand a good amount of the theory behind elliptic curve cryptography, however I am slightly unclear on how exactly a message in encrypted and then how is it decrypted. So my ...
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### Can I store the initialisation vector (IV) in the filename?

I'm encrypting a file and I'm using an initialisation vector. Given that the IV doesn't need to be a secret, is it secure if I add it to the encrypted file's name?
201 views

### Alice answering Bob without knowing the question

I'm a student and I don't know how to solve the following problem : Alice is proposing a 10 questions list to Bob. Bob choose only 1 question and wants to know the answer without Alice knowing the ...
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### Why does the modulus of Diffie–Hellman need to be a prime?

I read a lot about Diffie-Hellman, but there is one thing I dont understand: why does the modulus p need to be a prime? What if it would not be a prime?
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### How to compare performances of lattice-based and pairing-based IBE schemes

I try to compare the performances (cost of Enc, Dec, ... size of keys, ciphertexts, ...) of IBE schemes using lattices (LWE hardness assumption) or pairing (Diffie-Hellman hardness assumption). I've ...
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### What is the complexity of finding SHA-1 collisions?

Given the recent news about SHA-1 collisions, what is the complexity of finding a SHA-1 collision? Marc Steven's HashClash is still detailing about 260. Does the previous complexity still hold?
129 views

### Use of q-ary lattices in developing cryptosystems

Why q-ary lattices are used to most cryptosystems rather than lattices. In most of the papers q-ary lattices are used. Is there any advantage? and Given $$B=(v_1,v_2,v_3,.....v_n)$$ is the basis, ...
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### apprSVP in lattices

The approximate Shortest Vector Problem (apprSVP) is a problem where, given the basis and the approximation factor $\gamma$ (a function of the dimension $n$), one must find a vector $v$ belonging to ...
448 views

### Why can ssh-keygen export a public key in PEM PKCS8 format?

In the documentation of ssh-keygen (man ssh-keygen) it says for the option -m that an export ...
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### Given occasional LFSR samples can the next sample be computed?

Suppose I have access to an LFSR generator output used in a radio communications system, with the LFSR being used to authenticate devices. The system cycles an internal unknown length LFSR (greater ...
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### Is there a practical security difference between OTP with letters and OTP with numbers?

Is there a practical security difference between “OTP with letters” and “OTP with numbers”? If, for example, I encrypt a letter message using Tabula Recta with a random letter key, I would get: ...
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### Is there a partially homomorphic quantum secure public key cryptosystem with IND-CCA1 security?

I recentely asked "IND-CCA1 RSA padding?" about whether there is a IND-CCA1 secure variant of RSA. The original version of the question also allowed usage of ECC which would allow usage of ElGamal, ...