# All Questions

121 views

### Alternatives to HMAC + CBC?

I'm looking at using HMAC + CBC. The combination looks like this: ciphertext = AES256(text, k1) data = HMAC-SHA256(iv | ciphertext, k2) | iv | ciphertext Where: ...
108 views

### How does OAEP improve the security of RSA?

The heart of OAEP algorithm used for RSA encryption are the cryptographic hash functions $H$ and $G$. Does everybody (so also an adversary) know these functions? If YES: How does it help the ...
66 views

113 views

### Does knowledge of original file size provide a cryptographic weakness?

I'm encrypting files using an AES-256 CBC cipher and an SHA-256 HMAC every 64KB in the file. Since AES CBC needs an amount of input bytes to be divisible by 16, I use PKCS#7 padding to bring the ...
93 views

### Given a certain entrophy per character, how long should a passphrase be to guarantee key strength?

Given an entrophy of 1.5 bits per character, how long does a passphrase have the be to guarantee a key strength of a 128 bit random key? Assuming an alphabet of 26, one character takes log2(26)=4.7 ...
127 views

### Winzip AES256 vs PGP

If I use the AES256 option in Winzip to encrypt a file, is it any less safe or less secure than using pgp encryption?
243 views

### Custom crypto library in C

I will be making (in the near future) an app that will contain some pretty heavy crypto. As it is possible that my app will be ported to different devices (initially it will be iOs only, but Mac, ...
97 views

### encrypt message with one digest 0-9 instead of 01-26

How much will the security of one-time pad decrease if I use one digit from 0-9 instead of 1-26? for example plaintext = "blue" and ...
177 views

### CBC-MAC , fixed length, all blocks returned

CBC-MAC, with fixed length message. Is it safe to return all ciphered blocks instead of the last? My intuition says it is less secure, since is gives an attacker more information. But how could one ...
51 views

### How to derive formulas for addition and multiplication in Jacobian coordinates

Is there a way to derive the formulas for point addition and multiplication on elliptic curves in Jacobian format by yourself? How could I have derived these formulas by myself?
122 views

### Recommended way of adding a pepper/secret key to password before hashing?

There have been several questions regarding password hashing here and on Security.SE. A "pepper" is sometimes mentioned – an application-specific secret key. The canonical answer on password hashing ...