# All Questions

164 views

### SRP-6 vulnerabilities when N is small

I'm one of the developers of an application which uses SRP-6 as the authentication mechanism. The authentication part of the code is very old and uses N with only 256 bits (all arithmetic is done in ...
151 views

### GPG & Mcrypt - difference?

in short I'm learning GUI programming in python and thought it could be interesting to make a small GUI for symmetric encryption. Not being mad/mathematical/experienced (take your pick) enough to try ...
307 views

### Is my id obfuscation algorithm secure?

I'm designing an id obfuscation system. My system includes: Embedded chips, each chip has a unique 32-bit address (id). Server Insecure low-bandwidth unstable one-way channels from the chips to the ...
122 views

### Rainbow tables, where have I got it wrong?

There seems to be some error in my understanding of the concept of rainbow tables, despite going through quite a bit of articles on it. Let me show what I don't seem to agree with. My plain text is ...
172 views

### Where do I truncate the bits in SHA 256 hash algorithm?

I'm implementing SHA-256 in PHP using strings. Where do you truncate in the algorithm? There are a lot of places where there's binary addition happening so the number of bits in $W(i)$ keep ...
1k views

### Is Curve25519-java secure?

I have only about 2 weeks of cryptography experience mostly in the form of questions on bitcoin.se. Is Curve25519-java up to date with current Curve25519 standards? Is Curve25519 itself secure? ...
385 views

### Can I construct a feasible stream cipher out of HMAC and a secure hash algorithm?

I have constructed a stream cipher from a secure hash algorithm and a HMAC. Here is a brief description of the algorithm: Let: (Actually Objective-C styled pseudo code) ...
1k views

### Is there a hash function with 2048bit output?

Is there a publicly available cryptographic hashing algorithm with 2048 bit output? The standard ones are "only" up to 512 bit (SHA-512, WHIRLPOOL). (2048 bits are 256 bytes, so it would be useful ...
259 views

### Attacking a hardware AES implementation if it leaks the intermediate round states

Let's say that we have a hardware AES implementation that, on request, will encrypt or decrypt a 16-byte block of data in ECB mode using a fixed key, but refuses to reveal its fixed key. In other ...
4k views

### What algorithm could/should be used to encrypt files for storage on untrusted servers?

I need an encryption algorithm that works fast on large files and doesn't increase the file size. It should use a key to encrypt/decrypt data. The files will be sent using REST and over HTTPS, but a ...
1k views

### Where can I get information on how to implement AES?

I want to write AES from scratch without using the built in libraries of java. I know there are hundreds of AES programs (and websites) out there but I can't seem to find a site that gives me the ...
560 views

### Is there a symmetric-key cryptography based on key establishment techniques?

Most of the current key exchange techniques are based on public-key cryptography. Are there any key exchange/establishment techniques based on symmetric-key cryptography too? In my setup primary ...
107 views

### Session-specific Symmetric Key Derivation Using SHA256

I was wondering if there were any security implications of deriving session keys from a symmetric key using SHA256 in the following manner: $Ks = SHA256(Nonce||K)$, where $Nonce$ is the session ...
135 views

### ML/NN Cryptanalysis

Is it computationally plausible to use NN/ML to do any of the following tasks? "Real" cryptanalysis. Cyclic neural networks for extended computation, but break the hash all the way through. ...
280 views

### How feasible is word-level frequency analysis over English (or any language)?

Say I have some black box which, given any English word, deterministically outputs a token for that word. Assume our black box is implemented using strong cryptography, i.e. the hardness of reversing ...
646 views

### My SSH server public key is 2048 bits, but my account's private key is 4096. What is my effective security?

My SSH server has a 2048-bit public key. But my private key, for clients to login, is 4096-bit. In this case, do I have the brute force protection of 2048 or 4096 bits? My worry is that someone ...
348 views

### Advantages of 64-bit CPU smartphone

Advantages of having a 64-bit CPU vs 32-Bit CPU smartphone … 3. Complex Encryption. Improved Security: 64-Bit can process incredibly large numbers allowing you to better encrypt data against ...
418 views

### Can I use HMAC-SHA1 in counter mode to make a stream cipher?

Say I have an embedded device which is only capable of doing HMAC-SHA1 transformations (that device is, in fact, a YubiKey). Would it be secure to feed it like a block cipher in counter mode to get a ...
502 views

### How compared encryption algorithm in terms of efficiency

I want to compare two cryptographic algorithms. The first algorithm is RSA, and second algorithm is ElGamal elliptic curve cryptography. Now, I’m looking for a way to compare the speed of the two ...
172 views

### Hash or compression function in Merkle tree nodes?

Wikipedia says about a Merkle tree: Nodes further up in the tree are the hashes of their respective children. Usually, a cryptographic hash function such as SHA-2 or SHA-3 is used for the hashing. ...
837 views

### How to perform authentication without central server in P2P?

How can one be sure that the man who you're talking with is the one who you think he is? i.e. How can one perform authentication in P2P network without a central trust server or Certificate Authority? ...
742 views

### Luby-Rackoff theorem confusion

The Luby-Rackoff theorem states that if a round function is a secure pseudorandom function (PRF) then 3 rounds are sufficient to make the block cipher a pseudorandom permutation (PRP). PRPs are ...
399 views

### Known plaintext attack on ElGamal encryption

Assume that Alice uses Bob’s ElGamal public key ( = 2, Yb = 8) to send two messages $M = 17$ and $M' = 37$ using the same random integer $k = 9$. Eve intercepts the ciphertext and somehow she finds ...
84 views

### public key delivery without third party

I am currently working on an anonymous P2P file sharing application and I am elaborating some already existing solutions. Some of them allegedly provide point-to-point encryption using RSA ...
286 views

### Rely on NSA Suite B Cryptography?

NSA's Suite B Cryptography suggests some cryptographic algorithms for encryption, digital signatures, message digests and key agreements. The selected algorithms and their key size are suggested by ...
342 views

### How do the following new (2013) ECC curves compare in security or efficiency? [closed]

I read about the following "safe" ECC curves and notably, secp256 and all the NIST curves are marked as "unsafe" when compared to more modern curves. I need a curve for signing or encryption, (or ...
1k views

### Why can't you decrypt an encrypted message with just the public key? [duplicate]

How does asymmetric crypto work? For example, if you use PGP in emails, you generate a private key that is known only to you and a public key, which is available to everyone. Is there a simple way ...
228 views

### 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 ...
370 views

### Interleaving bytes to make an effectively larger block size

Will applying a 16 byte bit block cipher such as AES over a 256 byte block to in the following way result in a much stronger cipher:- Apply block cipher with first key digest to each 16 byte group. ...
704 views

### Subverting the key generation step in RSA public key cryptography

I am interested in the ways the implementation of an RSA key generation implementation can or cannot be subverted so that the subverter has an advantage, but the owner of the key, and the people who ...
121 views

### Are there any cryptographic flaws in my webhook signing process?

Out of band my services have exchanged secret keys. These secret keys are then used to prevent two things of the webhooks (HTTP calls triggered by Service A to Service B when an event occurs in ...
84 views

### Cryptanalysis of Nonlinear Table Lookup

I am trying to derive a symmetric key based on a master key, combined with a simple string. Based on my limited knowledge, it seems that something like PBKDF2 would do that for me in a well-defined ...
585 views

### Can you fake messages from recorded message-history?

Lets assume Eve has a lot of PGP conversation with Alice and records all those messages. Bob is also regularly communicating with PGP with Alice. If Bob doesn't care about not having a signature ...
269 views

### Using multiple secret keys

I have two secret keys. One is a secret key generated by OpenSSL (primary secret key). Second key is generated by performing one way hash operation to GPS co ordinates and time parameters (geo secret ...
59 views

### How does the signature checking work in DKIM?

As far as I understand DKIM works like this: DKIM is not used to encrypt anything, the only purpose is to mark mails that are not really sent from the claimed domain as spam. the DKIM-enabled ...
73 views

### Implementation Attacks on Hashes

So I am familiar with attacking implementations of block ciphers via side channel attacks, cache-timing attacks, etc. What implementation attacks are there against hashes or hashed based functions ...
211 views

### Decrypting an Affine Cipher with known characters

I am trying to cryptanalyse multiple cipher–texts that I know are encrypted by different Affine ciphers. I have already analysed the frequency that each character occurs, and compared it to a ...
88 views

### I am new to Cryptography and I wonder if one can Suggest me Beginner Projects [closed]

Sorry for this kind of a question, but I really like to learn and improve in cryptography. At the moment I am following online lectures from https://class.coursera.org/crypto-011 , can anyone suggest ...
220 views

### How does Diffie-Hellman key exchange work? [closed]

I've been learning about cryptography lately and I'm failing to understand how Diffie-Hellman key exchange works. Can someone please demonstrate using mathematical notation (and if possible, ...
95 views

### $(k, n)$ threshold secret sharing to $(k+k', n + n')$ without reissuing all shares

Given a $(k,n)$ threshold secret sharing used to back up a secret (meaning that the dealer has access to the secret at all times), is it possible to update it to a $(k+k', n+n')$ threshold secret ...
143 views

### Is encryption mainly using Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange?

I know how Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange works. Is this the main way of encrypting with PGP, ssh, ssl (https), DKIM, ...? I wonder if Diffie-Hellman is the clue to understand how encryption with ...
291 views

### Security issues of a MAC-then-Encrypt-then-MAC approach?

Encrypt-then-MAC does provide ciphertext integrity, but no plaintext integrity. With MAC-then-Encrypt it’s the other way around: Plaintext integrity but no ciphertext integrity. What comes to mind is ...
393 views

### What does well-typed mean?

I am currently studying Cryptography and I don't really understand what does 'well-typed' mean when talking about secure cryptographic protocols. I can't find any reasonable explanation on the ...
157 views

### Combining two keys

What is the most secure way to combine two "random" keys X of size k (k ≤ 512 bits) and Y of size 512 bits in one key Z of size k? Result Z will be used for encryption/decryption with various ...
744 views

### Why is AES considered to be secure?

The security of RSA is based on the integer factorization problem, which is a very well defined and understood mathematical problem. This problem must be solved in order to fundamentally break RSA. ...
92 views

### Is there an encryption that is only reversible with a key?

I'm thinking about man-in-the-middle attacks during a website login, and started wondering about reversible encryption. What I'm imagining is an encryption that takes input ...
121 views

### Is XORing a SHA256 better than truncating it? [duplicate]

Let say I want to truncate SHA256 to 128 bits. What would be the best way to minimize a probability of a collision and improve collision resistance? Taking the last 16 bytes Taking the first 16 ...
75 views

### linear computations over bilinear pairings

Does this hold in asymetric bilinear pairings? $e(x_1,x_2)e(x_3,x_4) = e(x_1x_3,x_2x_4)$, where $x_1,x_3 \in \mathbb{G}_1$ and $x_2,x_4 \in \mathbb{G}_2$ for a bilinear pairing $e$