# All Questions

229 views

### It is reasonably safe to leave a SSH private key with a 30+ character passphrase public?

I'm curious about exploring uses for a distributing a single RSA private key with a passphrase instead of trying to secure the private key and distribute the public key. With the private key (and ...
1k views

### Even passwords are vulnerable to hash collision attacks?

As stated in this page large documents hashed using md5 maybe vulnerable to collision attacks. My question is even passwords of 6-30 character are vulnerable to such hash collision attacks? If yes, is ...
135 views

### How comparable is OFB to a one-time pad?

This is a rather trivial question, I just want to see if I get the concept right. In OFB you generate a pseudorandom stream based on some nonce, and you XOR that with the message to get the ...
230 views

### How to efficiently generate a stream of independent, but biased random bits?

Usually, in cryptography, one is interested in debiasing a stream of independent (true) random bits, and several algorithms exist to do this. What about the converse? Let's assume I have a stream of ...
271 views

### FIPS 140 compliance for encrypted files

Does FIPS 140-2 require specific key sizes, or does it have specific requirements for the data? In other words, if I encrypt a file, how I can check whether it is FIPS-compliant or not? Does only the ...
185 views

### RSA Key generation Public exponent too big

I'm currently writing a paper about RSA (a self-chosen subject). I'm writing about the key-generation in RSA, and I have problem finding the public exponent e. I have chosen p = 61 and q = 53. Then ...
447 views

### AES key expansion vs. a hash

Is there something special about the AES key expansion algorithm that makes it secure, or it is a compromise between security and speed? For example, say with a key I expand it by taking pbkdf2(key) ...
411 views

### How can I add more rounds to AES?

I'd like to understand a bit more about the AES key schedule if anyone would mind explaining that. For instance, why is the way the schedule generated (with recursive xors and occasional ...
506 views

### Proving that a scheme is not IND-CPA-secure

Suppose I want to prove that a given symmetric encryption scheme is not IND-CPA secure. The first thing I do is to define a specific adversary that attacks the scheme. How can I proof neatly, (using ...
467 views

### Why is an Encrypt-and-MAC scheme with deterministic MAC not IND-CPA secure?

I'm preparing myself to exam, but I have a lot of troubles with rigorous proofs. It's the task from two-years ago exam. At the bottom I reminded one definition. Let $(Gen_E,Enc,Dec)$ be an ...
264 views

### Why pairing based crypto is suitable for some particular cryptographic primitives?

Why pairing based crypto is being widely used in some special crypto primitives as ID based crypto and variations of standard signatures? I mean taking as deep as possible what makes it suitable for ...
370 views

### Is there another resource for Carter-Wegman-style message authentication?

I'm wondering if there are other resources that cover Carter-Wegman style message authentication, besides the sources themselves. Is there an online text or a book that covers their ideas? I'd ...
200 views

### Why does .NET's ECB mode implementation append a constant block to my ciphertext?

Consider the following code and output: ...
384 views

### PRNG taking advantage of very large seed

Can anyone suggest a good (CS)PRNG algorithm that takes advantage of having a very large (ideally arbitrarily large) seed? I'd like to use several kilobytes, perhaps several hundred kilobytes, of ...
404 views

### Can we trust digital signatures?

Consider that Alice wants to send a digitally signed message to Bob. Mallory might be able to publish his public key under Alice's name and then impersonate Alice to send a message with an apparently ...
149 views

### Does it make sense to use slow hashes in digital signatures?

For storing passwords, it seems that the use of intentionally slow hash functions (like PBKDF2 and bcrypt) is now recommended. This is because most hashes are designed to be fast, which also makes ...
329 views

Sorry if this is a noob questions, but I finally figured out how to implement the Tiny Encryption Algorithm in C++. My question is what to do about padding the key and the plaintext? I know that ...
1k views

### How to get the keyword from a keyword cipher?

I was given a ciphertext and now I am trying to break it via looking for the keyword. This is a keyword cipher. So: PlainEnglish: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ If ...
322 views

### How can encryption involve randomness?

If an encryption algorithm is meant to convert a string to another string which can then be decrypted back to the original, how could this process involve any randomness? Surely it has to be ...
1k views

### How to sign a message using RSA?

Assuming I already have a D, P, Q, etc of an RSA key: How do I now sign a message? If it matters – the message is around 100 bits. I don't know much about cryptography, but I can get these numbers ...
7k views

### How to use RCON In Key Expansion of 128 Bit Advanced Encryption Standard

I have a question about RCON here is my illustration... this is the 128 bit key.. ...
2k views

### Big-O Notation: Encryption Algorithms

I am currently completing a dissertation concerning the encryption of data through a variety of cryptographic algorithms. I have spent much time reading journals and papers but as yet have been ...
2k views

### Does encrypting twice using the same block cipher produce a security weakness?

If I use the output of a cipher, for example a block cipher such as AES and encrypt it again with the same algorithm, I read that this introduces weaknesses into the overall security of the system. ...
1k views

### Symmetric vs. Asymmetric cryptographic approaches to data security

I know the basic differences between Symmetric vs. Asymmetric cryptography, but I'd love to know more details: Exactly why is the asymmetric approach slower than the symmetric? Why does it make ...
73 views

Suppose you need to authenticate yourself to a program with the password - but the program's source code is public, the program doesn't have access to any private information and all your ...
266 views

### Realize a MAC using a Pseudo-random function?

Given a pseudo-random function and assuming that we do not have any other tools, How can we construct a MAC? I believe this can be done. Would like to know if there is more than one way of doing ...
2k views

### Secure way to transfer data over NFC?

I am currently writing a payment system to accept payment details from an NFC enabled smartphone (BlackBerry 9900) to a Windows client (C#.NET) I am currently having two issues relating to security: ...
268 views

### Is EKE attackable by a brute-force password search?

So I'm trying to properly implement the EKE protocol and I'm using C# with the Windows CNG and ECDH key exchange. I need to use this because it's FIPS certified and all that jazz. So what I'm ...
117 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 ...
86 views

### Is this modified Schnorr signature scheme secure?

Signing Let y = g^x, which is your public/private keypair. Let r = g^v, for random v Let c = H(M) Let z = (v + cx) mod q The signature is the pair (r,z) Verifying g^z = ry^c mod p We further ...
277 views

### What weaknesses in Hash_DRBG did NIST find and fix?

Matthew Green states in the Practical Kleptography presentation (video, at about 12:15) that Hash_DRBG (from SP800-90A) as originally proposed by NSA had potentially exploitable flaws or bugs and that ...
229 views

### salsa20 is invertible, useless in CTR mode?

I'm reading the salsa20 spec (sorry for the newbie question, i'm really a newbie here). Every paragraph ends with : "this operation is invertible", I suppose the whole salsa20 algorithm is. If I use ...
123 views

### Can Bitcoin HD public keys be used for symmetric encryption?

I asked this at bitcoin.stackexchange.com first, but it seems that this is more of a crypto-question anyway. I'm interested in using a Hierarchical Deterministic Bitcoin wallet branch as a "shared ...
184 views

### Chosen plaintext attack on textbook RSA decryption

Let $(n,d)$ be an RSA private key and $(n,e)$ the corresponding private key. Generate a secret random $r$ from $(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z})^*$ Compute $C’ = C (r^e) \bmod n$ Submit $C’$ as a chosen ...
168 views

### SHACAL in SHA-256

I was reading about hash functions, namely SHA, and I read that it is made of the Merkle-Damgard construction. And then the text said that the compression function used is based on the Davis-Meyer ...
326 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. ...
126 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, ...
99 views

### Test Vectors for ciphers

While implementing ciphers (/hash functions, ...), I often face this problem: Where to find test vectors for it; so that I can guarantee my program is correct. It is generally a tedious job to find ...
142 views

### OCB nonce usage

I've just come across this piece of code in Bouncy Castle's implementation of OCB Mode: ...
392 views

### Can I crack an AES string if I have all these parameters?

This is for a challenge at followthewhiterabbit.trustpilot.com: Knowns: The algorithm is AES (Rijndael) Blocksize: 128 Keysize: 256 You only need to find the first 6 bytes of the ...
212 views

### What curve and key length to use in ECDSA with BouncyCastle

I'm developing a client/server system in Java which is not interacting with third party software, so I don't have to worry about compatibility. At a certain point, I need the client and server to ...
145 views

### generate hash of all handshake messages for verify data (DTLS)

I am trying to create a DTLS client finished packet, where I need to generate verify data for handshake hash is need. And here I want to know how to generate handshake hash. As of now I am doing like ...
138 views

I was researching about hash, and I thought, If sites store passwords with hash algorithms, then can't this happen: User A has the password 'hello' User B finds out the hash code of the password of ...
113 views

### Is it possible to get better randomness by using multiple PRNGs?

I don't know if this question even makes sense, but: Is there be any benefit or impact to some sort of hierarchical (e.g. a PRNG drives the decision for which PRN to pull from a set of PRNGs) or ...
125 views

### Encrypt-then-MAC: full random keys or keys derived from master key?

I have this scenario where I use Encrypt-then-MAC (AES256-CBC and HMAC-SHA256) with keys generated by a CSPRNG (specifically, SecureRandom in Java). I'd like to know which is better: Use the CSPRNG ...
101 views

### Does this protocol provide Perfect Forward Secrecy / are there potential security flaws?

We have a HMAC key (128 bit/16 bytes) an AES key (128 bit/16 bytes) an AES IV (128 bit/16 bytes) a random salt (128 bit/16 bytes) Each packet is signed with a HMAC (SHA256) After each packet is ...
112 views

### Reductionist proofs of decisional problems to computational

Are they any reductionist proofs where an attacker $\mathcal{I}$ for a well established computationally "hard" problem $\mathsf{Π}$ is employing an attacker $\mathcal{A}$ who we assume is able to ...
89 views

### RSA private exponent primality

I know that the public exponent is always a prime, but what about the private exponent? Is it always a prime too?
The proof of FO hybrid encryption is hard to understand. $\:$ Especially, how does the challenger respond to the decryption queries when the challenger can only have some encryption queries? Can ...