All Questions

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How does Diffie–Hellman differ from elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman?

I didn't understand how ECDH actually works. Disclaimer: I know very little about elliptic curves. Here is how DH works: Alice and Bob agree on a prime number $P$ and a generator $G$. (They use one ...
92 views

Fingerprint RSA public key in PKCS1 format

I can't find anywhere details on how to fingerprint a public RSA key in PKCS1 format. There are a lot of examples on the internet on how to fingerprint an RSA public key in openssh format using ...
55 views

Design for file transfers to a new party

I'm pondering a problem of how to enable transfers of files from clients to people that does not yet have an application/account/keys yet. Here's my current thought for Alice wanting to send Bob ...
1k views

Is RSA key size the size of private key exponent?

I have implemented a key pair generation scheme for RSA algorithm. I have taken the length of private key exponent as RSA key size, but then I've got to know that RSA key size is the size of the ...
89 views

Is there any benefit of changing the AES-CCM encryption key periodically even if the Nonce space is not exhausted yet?

I would like an answer that could be sustained by a mathematical proof. Let's say I'm using AES-CCM to encrypt a lot of messages, and I always use a different nonce. I know that when the nonce space ...
301 views

Has anyone heard of matrix-based “Russian Doll” encryption techniques?

I've been told that prime-number factoring is based on a "russian-doll" sequence of matrices, where a seed matrix of height Y and width X exists consisting of all zeros except for a single 1 at row Y ...
229 views

lcm versus phi in RSA

In textbook RSA, the Euler $\varphi$ function $$\varphi(pq) := (p-1)(q-1)$$ is used to define the private exponent $d$. On the other hand, real-world cryptographic specifications require the ...
29 views

Understanding RSA [duplicate]

I'm reading RSA in Cryptography Course. There is portion of RSA that's confusing me. In Handbook of Applied Cryptography its written Represent the message $M$ as ...
118 views

AES-256 mode with per-block-key being a SHA-256 of SHA-256 of secret key, random public salt and block number. What's amiss?

Please criticize the (homebrew?) mode described below; to point out a single major defect/uncertainty or the link to (the analysis of) an equivalent construction is quite enough. Assume the ...
103 views

AES/DES question about determine a key

I have a question. If you receive a DES encrypted message for which you would NOT recognize the plaintext if it were decrypted, is there any way to potentially determine the key if all keys are ...
2k views

Is it possible to pick your Ed25519 public key?

Is it possible to generate an Ed25519 keypair that has a very similar public key as another keypair (fooling a casual visual comparison) or is this as hard as solving one of SHA-512 or the discrete ...
70 views

What level of security is provided when a Feistel Cipher is used as a round function of another Feistel Cipher?

Recently, I was reading: Are there any specific requirements for the function F in a Feistel cipher?, and the answer posted mentions a Feistel Cipher named Turtle, which uses a four-round Feistal ...
49 views

How to detect changes in data while preserving confidentiality (under constraints)?

Suppose party $A$ has two pieces of data, $X$ and $Y$, either of which may change separately, or they may change together. Given the following constraints: $A$ knows its current $X$ and $Y$ but has ...
231 views

RSA Signature Verification Implementation on Cortex M0

I have to implement RSA Signature Verification procedure (RSA-2048) on a Cortex M0 based MCU. My budget is 15kB Flash and 2-4kB Flash RAM. Is it even possible to do RSA on a low end MCU based on ...
61 views

converting finite field elements to octet strings

I need to convert elements of the finite field $GF(p^k)$, where $p$ is an odd prime, to octet strings. To be more precise, I want to include elliptic curve points over $GF(p^2)$ in a Subject Public ...
136 views

I was wondering if interleaving the resulting crypted data with dummy bytes placed at random positions but known in advance by the peers could improve security (no matter the algorithm and strength ...
54 views

Detecting Software Changes - Verifying untampered code

This question assumes an environment devoid of any internet connections, the software in questions operates in a non-connected environment on a single machine. I have a piece of software that may be ...
98 views

Can a billion elliptic curve keys be generated on a laptop in less than an hour?

I want my application to generate an EC key pair. The first four bytes of the sha256 hash of the public key should contain a known IP address. As hashes are one-way functions, I need to brute force ...
135 views

How to prove that the Permutation cipher is not CPA secure?

Encryption scheme is called a permutation cipher if every plaintext string with letters $a_1,\ldots, a_n$ is encrypted as $a_{\pi(1)}, \ldots, a_{\pi(n)}$ for some (not necessarily uniform) ...
1k views

Combining multiple symmetric encryption algorithms - implications?

I was just wondering if I add more security by combining two or more symmetric encryption algorithms on a plain text. For example: ...
961 views

Why does AES-GCM need a hash/MAC in TLS?

"TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256" is just one example for a cipher suite, as far as I'm concerned it means this: It uses the TLS protocol, exchanges keys with Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman ...
261 views

SHA256: Padding a 512 bits length message

I am currently implementing the SHA256 hash-algorithm for a "custom-built" embeded-device. Obviously I have a problem with message padding. The routine I wrote does not work with message whose size ...
8k views

How are primes generated for RSA?

As I understand it, the RSA algorithm is based on finding two large primes (p and q) and multiplying them. The security aspect is based on the fact that it's difficult to factor it back into p and q. ...
170 views

Does it necessarily mean that an RSA moduli generated with poor randomness is not random?

In 2012 a group of researchers collected a large amount of RSA moduli and calculated their greatest common divisor in order to find common factors between them. By finding a common factor they could ...
52 views

State level “Weak Diffie-Hellman” working for SRP too?

I've read about the "Weak Diffie-Hellman" attack (paper, website), where a resourceful entity like a state can pre-compute values for known primes to aid solving the discrete logarithm problem for ...
40 views

Data Switching and Information Leakage

Hypothesis: Let $z,a$ be uniformly random elements of a field $\mathbb{F}_p$ where $p$ is a large prime number. Also, let $(-z)$ be additive inverse of $z$. I have a fixed secret value $x$. I mask ...
1k views

Does an encrypted random sequence conserve its “randomness”?

If you have a random uniform sequence of bits $A$ generated by a TRNG with good performance of randomness tests (eg Dieharder, NIST, Kolmogorov complexity, chi-square, etc) and perform an encryption ...
32 views

Number of qubits and breaking hashes [duplicate]

Noting D-Wave's press release on a 1000 qubits quantum computer had me wondering... Does the number of qubits nonlinearly change the speed/rate at breaking a SHA256 hash? If someone makes a say ...
307 views

Does the position of the salt improve its effectiveness when hashing?

Seems most documentation I have read suggests the salt should prefix the value to be hashed. Is this just for consistency, or is the salt more effective when prefixed?
75 views

Why does TLS 1.2 use GCM with additional SHA hash? [duplicate]

I am studying the cipher suites provided by TLS 1.2 and found an interesting question. TLS 1.2 adopts GCM for encryption and SHA256 or SHA384 for hash (e.g. TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256). But, GCM ...
279 views

Fast attack on approximate GCD problem?

This question is about the approximate GCD problem which is defined as follows: Given any number of the approximate multiples $a_i = p \cdot q_i + r_i$ of $p$, where $p$, $q_i$ and $r_i$ are integers, ...
55 views

I'm creating a messaging application that will use an outlook account to send an email. However, I'm unsure about the proper steps to store the e-mail password on the user's computer. Suppose I had ...
104 views

Values of p and q when e = 3 (RSA)?

I am doing a paper on textbook RSA (this is for high school btw) and in my example I need two very large primes, but I want my $e = 3$. Is there a short way to calculate the values of $p$ and $q$ ...
2k views

PBKDF2 for key diversification

I am looking for a secure key diversification function to create individual AES keys for a local smart card deployment. The keys need to be derived from a secret master key and the smart card serial ...
119 views

Verify a RSA signature using only RSA encryption

I'm trying to verify a RSA signed message, however, the API that I have access to in that environment only has encrypt and decrypt. I think I understand that verification and encryption with public ...
166 views

Can a file encrypted with one tool be decrypted with different tool? [closed]

I'm new to cryptography and I'm trying implement a file encryption feature into a Python program but I'm running into a big issue...what is needed for someone else to decrypt the file?! Obviously, I ...
8k views

Now that quantum computers have been out for a while, has RSA been cracked?

D-wave systems has released a commercially viable quantum computer. This means in theory, that all asymmetric encryption algorithms — such as RSA — are now useless due to the speed at which quantum ...
8k views

What are the benefits of the two permutation tables in DES?

Why do we use a permutation table in the first step of DES algorithm and one at the end of the algorithm?
713 views

What are the methods to construct a primitive binary nonlinear feedback shift register (NLFSR)?

Given a binary shift register of $n$ bits, a primitive binary nonlinear feedback shift register will generate a sequence with a period of $2^n - 1$. While I am unable to find a paper which directly ...
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What is required to decrypt an encrypted file?

At the risk of sounding stupid and being laughed at...I must ask this question. What is required to decrypt an encrypted file? Obviously you need the appropriate key to decrypt, but is any other ...
210 views

ECDH or RSA more secure for symmetric key wrapping?

Suppose a message is encrypted with a symmetric block cipher with a random key. RSA is often used to wrap the symmetric key using the recipient's public key. In this case, the size of the message is ...
53 views

How hard to solve the given mod problem

Let c = a.b mod p where p is n bit prime number (e.g. 128 or 160 bit prime number); a - random number between 1 and (p-1); b - random number between 1 and (p-1); Given c, a and p, how hard to ...
1k views

Are there any secure commutative ciphers?

This answer lists two commutative cipher algorithms - Pohlig-Hellman and SRA. However, they don't appear to be too secure. My question is, here there any commutative ciphers out there that are secure ...