# All Questions

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### Constructing secure key exchange protocol

I have $\Pi=(Gen,Enc,Dec)$ and let it be semantically secure public-key encryption scheme. Security parameter is $n$, then the message space of plaintext is always $\lbrace 0, 1 \rbrace^n$. By using ...
121 views

### Is the mod_auth_tkt scheme secure?

The third-party Apache plugin mod_auth_tkt uses a tragically-not-HMAC construction: ...
301 views

### Security considerations for partially shared password databases

Programs like KeyPass and 1Password store password database files encrypted by a single password. If someone knows the protecting password ("Vault Key"), they can read the entire database ("secrets"). ...
293 views

### 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 ...
456 views

### Is it possible to match encrypted documents using user-defined search terms?

Suppose I am storing a number of encrypted documents in a database. I would like to make it possible to identify the subset of documents whose contents match user-specified search terms without a) ...
201 views

### Encrypt array of int for individual retrieval

I have limited exposure to cryptographic terminology, so please bear with me. My end goal is to encrypt integer IDs, before transmitting them to a web client in a list of search results, in a way ...
757 views

### Signature and Timestamp for Long Term Document Archival Question

I have a PDF document intended for long-term (many years, maybe decades) archival which I would like to digitally sign with my personal certificate to ensure its integrity. As far as I understand, I ...
3k views

### How do digital certificates work, and why is it not possible to reverse engineer one from a signed file?

Digital certificates are used quite commonly these days, for signing files. They are used by various operating systems to ensure reliability and security. For example, Android requires that each of ...
240 views

### Algorithm to securely exchange identities

Say four people each have a public/private key pair that they can use to encrypt or sign messages. They have an anonymous way to post messages such that the others can see them. Malicious entities can ...
168 views

### What “Tag Length” should be used for the EAX MAC?

Since EAX is very flexible with regard to the length of the calculated MAC (what they call "tag" is the MAC value right?), and the EAX paper as well as other documentations carefully avoid suggesting ...
1k views

### Obtaining the key length from the ciphertext of an auto-encipher

I'm revising for a cryptography exam at the moment and I'm having some problems with a question. The question looks for the key length of a cipher given that the word "earthquake" appears in the ...
1k views

### Demonstrating the insecurity of an RSA signature encoding scheme

I'm working on problem 12.4 from Katz-Lindell. The problem is as follows: Given a public encoding function $\newcommand{\enc}{\operatorname{enc}}\enc$ and a textbook RSA signature scheme where ...
192 views

### Does hash_df use binary or an ASCII hexadecimal representation for numbers to be passed to the hash function?

I'm implementing the HASH_DRBG algorithm. As per NIST-SP800 90 document for HASH DRBG Generation, section 10.4.1 "Derivation Function Using a Hash Function (Hash_df)", the Hash_df algorithm contains ...
423 views

### ElGamal message signatures retrieving the secret value x

If the GCD(r, p-1) is small and the value k is used to sign a message using ElGamal is also small. Then the secret value of x can be determined. Why is this true? How would one retrieve x?
204 views

### Background for modular arithmetic function

I'm investigating this function: $a := ((b\cdot c) \bmod k) - (b \cdot c)/k$ where $/$ indicates integer division. Two things I've noticed: It's equivalent to multiplying a·b, and then ...
949 views

### Digital Signature Algorithm signature creation

I was studying DSS from "Cryptography and Network Security" by William Stallings. What puzzled me was the DSS approach figure described in the text. It says it uses Public and Private Keys for ...
45 views

### Recommended password complexity for SSH key encryption using AES-256-CBC

When protecting SSH private keys with password-based encryption, what would be a good minimum password complexity+length standard to make cracking the password too difficult to be worthwhile anytime ...
41 views

### Is RSA vulnerable to the padding oracle attack?

I know that AES in combination with CBC mode is vulnerable against the Padding Oracle Attack. RSA also uses some kind of padding, hence can this attack be apply to RSA encrypted messages too?
65 views

### How can recovered 5-letters plain text help me to recover reused OTP key

I have 10 cipher texts ciphered with One Time Pad (OTP) using the same key. I need to recover the key (or in other words, to recover the 11th cipher text which I assumed would require me to recover ...
113 views

### Is there any such thing as “proof of location”?

I'm looking for a way for someone to prove to me their geographical location without a trusted third-party. Imagine wanting to prove to someone you're actually physically in a specific place. I'd ...
102 views

### How can I generate a good password from a SHA512 hash?

I have to change local administrator passwords on machines. I don't want to store password in a database. I have to generate a password that I can find later to connect to the machine again. So I ...
101 views

### Why should one prefer Salsa20 over ChaCha?

We are all aware of Google's approach to introduce ChaCha/Poly1305 as TLS cipher suite. The rationale seems clear: ChaCha is newer and seems to provide better security (and maybe speed?) gained from ...
55 views

### Is authenticated encryption basically a lockable box?

I recently used a custom construction as a commitment scheme, which was taken from the standard picture you give people while explaining commitment schemes. Basically commitment schemes can be ...
46 views

### How does DPA work on AES?

I am really not much of a crypto guy so I don't really get how a differential power analysis on AES works. Can somebody explain it to me how it basically works?
77 views

### Does authenticated encryption add any protection to a signed digital envelope?

The general scenario of hybrid encryption is to use public key cryptography for the exchange of a one time session key that can be used for the encryption of the plaintext with a symmetric encryption ...
113 views

### Proof that two parties can communicate

Suppose we have three parties, Alice, Bob, and Carol. Alice can receive messages from Bob and Carol individually, but can only send messages to both simultaneously. Additionally, Alice cannot tell if ...
134 views

### How to generate own secure elliptic curves?

I know that the algorithm used to generate the Brainpool curves and the NIST curves is published. The algorithm should be this one (RFC5639 Appendix A). From what it looks like it's rather slow to ...
100 views

### Is there a scheme that allows to use RSA based challenge response protocol limited to signing only 8 bytes to create a secure signature of any data?

I have a tiny device that has a challenge-response authentication mechanism where the device signs 8 bytes of any data with it's internal 2048 bit RSA key. I would like to be able to certify any data ...
98 views

### Do hand-based hash functions / MACs exist?

Is there research on a hash function or a MAC that can be executed without computers? I know there's a lot of history on hand-based ciphers and the OTP can easily be excecuted by hand. (By using ...
76 views

### Paillier cryptosystem preserve ordering of sums for two integer sequences

According to Paillier cryptosystem the product of two ciphertexts will decrypt to the sum of their corresponding plaintexts. I have two separate integer sequences X and Y that have same number of ...
103 views

### Is it ever unsafe to compress an EC point?

I am working with a library that outputs EC points in uncompressed form. To save space, I'm considering modifying said library to use compressed EC points. Assuming that I keep track of the sign bit ...
100 views

### Is it possible to combine true streaming with AEAD?

It seems there is a difference between "streaming" in cryptographic sense (as in CTR) and "streaming" in general programming sense (as in "accept a file larger than RAM from socket and save it on ...
184 views

### Achieving 32-bit verification code with 16-bit CRC? [closed]

I am programming an embedded chip that has a hardware 16-bit CRC module. I have to protect some data bytes $d_0,d_1,...,d_{n-1}$ against corruption caused by sudden loss of power; a 32-bit CRC would ...
177 views

### Smart Card - Entropy during on-board public key generation

I know that some (advanced) smart cards or tokens allow generating key pair directly on the device, but I wonder how the card can gather entropy during the process. Any idea ?
97 views

### Security concern about reducing hash value using modulo operation

As stated in the title, what I am looking for is information about a "technique" that I would like to use in some of my algorithms. Sometimes I need to map a hash function's result into a range of ...
112 views

### How many times can a key be used for HMAC-SHA256 before it needs to be rotated?

If I wanted to use hmac for proving that a value hadn't been tampered with, how many times can I use a key before it needs to be rotated?
97 views

### Secure multiparty computation of conjunction

Suppose Alice and Bob each have bits a and b, respectively. How can Alice and Bob compute the function ...
221 views

### Real life systems that use concepts of crypto computing [closed]

Are there any working cloud/internet solutions/products that operates on encrypted data such as systems using homomorphic encryption, secure multiparty computation, electronic voting, private ...
86 views

### NIST implementation of the Lucas primality test

The NIST standard FIPS 186-4 describes an implementation of the Lucas primality test in section C.3.3. I can follow the algorithm but I am puzzled by step 6.2: ...
91 views

### Use of ElGamal encryption for signature generation

If RSA (textbook RSA that is) generates a digital signature by using the sender's private key, couldn't any cryptosystem (the only two that come to mind are RSA and ElGamal) capable of asymmetric ...
317 views

### What is the difference between “secp…” and “sect…”?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended elliptic curve domain parameters to have names such as “secp…” and “sect…”. For example: “secp224k1” and “sect571k1”. What is ...
131 views

### What is the technical name for a public key container in DER format?

I have a public key in the following (format-neutral; the type is specified by the DER bytes) format: ...
156 views

### Last Round in DES

I am studying DES for my Cryptoexam .As far as I understood , the initial plaintext is permuted and then the left half is called L0 and Right half is called R0. After that for each round the process ...
442 views

### Why does FIPS 186-4 require specific sizes for keys?

In FIPS 186-4, page 32, about FFC crypto it is required that the length of $p$ will be exactly 1024 bit and the length of $q$ will be exactly 160 bit. Why is the requirement not stated in terms of ...
66 views

### Is using SHA256 to extract entropy from a p-rand nonce a good way to create keying material?

Using $SHA256(N)$, where $N$ is 64 bytes of output from the Microsoft Windows CryptGenRandom function. Are there any known vulnerabilities with using this method to ...
131 views

### Which public key encryption scheme is re-randomizable? How can I re-randomize an encryption scheme?

Which public key encryption scheme is re-randomizable? Is there any library for re-randomizable encryption scheme? If not, how can I re-randomize a given public key encryption scheme? I cannot find ...
162 views

### PBKDF2 Salt and Password Ordering

I am currently reading about PBKDF2, and understand that the salt is used only once, while the password is used multiple times in the computation of the final key (see this question). How would the ...
154 views

### Proving Non-Existence of ECC Backdoors

In light of the NIST Dual EC DRBG scandal, I was intrigued by a NIST slide (slide 9) that said the two points P and Q can be chosen so that the chooser can prove they don't have a backdoor. This ...