# All Questions

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### Why does Schnorr's Digital Signature scheme necessitate two prime numbers?

One of the necessary components to the Schnorr Digital Signature scheme is a pair of prime numbers $p$ and $q$ such that $q$ divides $p-1.$ However, there is never a modular inverse taken of q so why ...
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### Must root certificates be self signed?

Root certificates are normally self-signed. What is the reason behind that convention? I mean, one must trust the root certificate in a non cryptographic way anyhow.
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### Combining md5 collisions to create more collisions

Given X1 and X2 such that md5(X1) = md5(X2) and Y1 and Y2 such that md5(Y1) = md5(Y2), and knowing the following property of md5: if md5(a) = md5(b), md5(a|s) = md5(b|s) is there a way to find ...
822 views

### generate RSA public key having public modulus and exponent [closed]

i want to generate an RSA public public key file using openssl (or other tools) having public modulus and exponent, so i can use it later to encrypt files i have this: ...
79 views

### Which ECB ciphertext stealing scheme is this?

I am stuck with identifying ciphertext stealing method with the following properties: mode of operation is ECB; recommended padding scheme for this application is PKCS#7, but apparently it is not ...
94 views

### how to get the file used to brute force any encryption method [closed]

Bitlocker as example uses AES 128 Bit encryption as default - if it was brute forced how it can be done , I mean where's the file that will be brute forced to generate the password (If I'm right that ...
40 views

### PKCS#11 Sessions

I am maintaining an application that uses PKCS#11 to talk to a smartcard. Somehow a session gets generated, but i cant figure out where in the code. I am using c# and the PKCS11Interop wrapper. The ...
138 views

### How to use AES correctly in BPS Format Preserving Encryption

I have several questions on using AES 128bit in the BPS format preserving encryption Which modes are acceptable? (Should the block cipher used at each round be deterministic (ECB) or probabilistic ...
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### Why is GCM only usable for ciphers with a 128-bit block size?

All block cipher modes of operation that I understand are generic schemes. They are not restricted by key size or block size. So why is GCM restricted to 128-bit block size?
63 views

### How to generate backup key for PBKD functions?

I would like to encrypt some files using AES, Ill derive key from password using some standard PBKD function and use that as AES encryption key. My question is, if user forgets the main password, ...
71 views

### Is it safe to use single-block AES for mutual authentication?

I read the question Symmetric mutual authentication with client using a derived secret and its answer which, if I'm not mistaken, assert that it should be safe to use the proposed protocol for mutual ...
68 views

### Diffie-Hellman secret key choices

I'm trying to understand why the secret keys used by Alice and Bob in Diffie-Hellman are $a,b ∈ ℤ∗p$. Say $a$ is $p - 1$, wouldn't the transmitted $g^a$ be 1 mod $p$ by $FLT$? Now anytime a ...
188 views

### Why does GnuPG save an array of remainders when generating prime numbers?

In looking at GPG's gen_prime() function, found within the cyphers/primegen.c file of ...
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### What is the process to get the n future key for DUKPT? [closed]

I need to get the n future key from my BDK and KSN.
155 views

### How can cryptographic signatures be somehow linked to a physical signature?

A few days ago, I was asked to sign an online document over DocuSign as well as on SignEasy, any the signature were accepted just by a physical signature sent over email or on the app. They did not ...
44 views

### Sextic twist maps to q Eigenspace of Frobenius

Let $E(p)$ be a Barretto-Naehrig elliptic curve with r-torsion and embedding degree 12 and $E'$ a sextic twist with homomorphism $\psi$. How to show, that $E'$ has a unique r-torsion group $\psi$ ...
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I read this post from Ben Tasker describing how to take control of a powerline network. Since I am interested in security, I tried to do the same thing, to see if it was possible. I used Devolo ...
161 views

### Is there a way to encrypt an integer within an arbitrary range?

I need an algorithm that can take an integer, an arbitrary range, a key of 16/24/32 bytes, and an initialization vector of 16 bytes(ideally), and return an integer in the same range. My latest attempt ...
461 views

### Ciphertext and tag size and IV transmission with AES in GCM mode

I am completely new to using AES in GCM mode of operation, and I have not a very large background in cryptography as well. I have been playing with OpenSSL trying to encrypt and decrypt some messages. ...
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### Is it possbile to get same set of public and private keys twice while creating CSR ? If so where does the conflict happens !?

I'm new to cryptography and please clarify if my below assumption is wrong. Lets assume, that two different banks creating CSR and they get identical public and private key pairs of RSA. In such ...
251 views

### How can a Encrypt-And-MAC scheme be insecure if the encryption is CCA secure?

I was presented with this seemingly paradoxical information, and am hoping someone can explain what I'm missing here. I have an encrypt-and-mac scheme here.If I want to transmit message m to Bob, I'd ...
71 views

### Why is (gy, gx) signed in STS (station-to-station)?

My question relates to the station-to-station protocol as described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station-to-Station_protocol [1] and http://cacr.uwaterloo.ca/hac/ [2] p 519. ...
100 views

### PKCS#7 message content

I am using a vendor library that signs a text producing a PKCS#7 message. I'm not sure of the content of this message. Does a pkcs#7 message have to contain the signed message, the certificate, the ...
99 views

### Why is the tweak length 64bit in BPS FPE algorithm?

In the algorithm for BPS Format Preserving Encryption Is this tweak always the same length (64bit)? Why did they choose the length 64bit for the tweak?
119 views

### Need some understanding on RSA public key exponent

I am new in cryptography domain and try to build some understanding on RSA key pair generation. My doubt is on RSA public key exponent value . Can exponent be any value (prime or non prime numbers)? ...
908 views

### Encryption algorithm that produces dummy output on incorrect passwords

Background: I've been thinking about using encryption in the context of backing up files to untrusted locations (to the point of making the file publicly and widely distributed for practically ...
58 views

### Paillier cryptosystem, small integers and range of values

First, this a different take on my previous question: Pailler encryption of small integers to 32-bit integers I have to encode small integers (range 0-50) using the Paillier cryptosystem. Those ...
151 views

### Proving security of TLS handshake with ProVerif

Background For my dissertation I am working on an application protocol for which I require a TLS session. I am looking to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy, which means I have selected ephemeral ...
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### How does the Efficient Fully Homomorphic Encryption from (Standard) LWE work?

I am interesting to learn the low level implementation of Efficient Fully Homomorphic Encryption from (Standard) LWE and I am wondering if anyone can answer the following questions: Does the BV ...
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### What are the number of output bits of the internal function F used in BPS algorithm?

In the BPS specification document it says We denote by f the number of output bits of the internal function F What is this if the internal function is AES? Would it be the block size (e.g. 128)? ...
407 views

### Timing Attack on RSA

So far I have researched on timing attack on RSA, We all know the ransomware named Cryptolocker it uses RSA 2048 bit encryption. Now is it possible to break the encryption using timing attack. I have ...
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### Do ECDH and ECDSA combined solution provide an authenticated protocol exchange solution in MCU environment?

I'm working on a project in MCU (micro controller) environment with GPRS connection to exchange data securely with the cloud. The encryption algorithm has been selected to use AES. I did some search ...
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### Define “cryptographer”

I often encounter the phrase "I am not a cryptographer". Is there a generally accepted definition for who is a cryptographer? What qualifications would be expected? For instance, should that person ...
65 views

### TLS_PSK and perfect forward secrecy

My question is about how difficult is for someone having compromised the PSK and sniff all (DT)LS handshake, (so getting the NONCE), to get the encryption keys? I understand : getting the pre-master ...
243 views

### Encryption Algorithms in Verilog code

Can we implement Encryption Algorithms like RC4,AES and DES in Verilog? if no what are the limitations?
103 views

### Is this client-side password hash scheme secure?

I want to build an app that uses client-side encryption for storing encrypted data on the server. A user-specific master key would be used, so to easily share it between devices a encrypted version of ...
61 views

### Public SRP verifiers or public hash chain “public keys” when secret is low entropy password

I want to set up the following: An untrusted server should host user sessions and authenticate users without knowing their passwords or being capable of creating a fake user session in the user's ...
4k views

### How do we know a cryptographic primitive won't fail suddenly?

It took more than a decade from when MD5 looked like it was going to break to the point when it was actually broken. That's more than a decade of warning. How can we be sure that when our ...
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### How does the small n attack work?

I'm studying the Lamport's Hash one-time password scheme. This is the scheme: Alice wants to authenticate herself to Bob from a workstation that knows nothing about her. Alice only knows her ...
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### Do we have to consider the cryptographic properties of the decryption, if we're only using the encryption?

Treyfer for example has slower diffusion in decryption. It has full diffusion between words in 2 rounds for encryption and 7 rounds for decryption. Do we have to consider the (bad) cryptographic ...
774 views

### Authentication using AES

I need to implement an authentication mechanism in an embedded environment which does not support floating point operations but has an AES accelerator module which allows for encyption/decryption ...
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### Secure “table-look-up” operation

I am thinking about this problem: The server has a two-column table $T=\{c_1,c_2\}$. A user has a query $q$ that is sent to server. The server find an item $x$ in the first column satisfying $x=q$ ...
654 views

### Reuse of a DH / ECDH public key

I was wondering whether it is safe to use the same DH or ECDH key pair in more than one key agreement, particularly if these public keys are in a public registry. These public keys could be used by ...
197 views

### Shared modulus attack on RSA

Consider a scenario in which a group of people use a common modulus $n$ in the textbook RSA crypto system, where $n=pq$, $p$ and $q$ are large distinct prime numbers. Is there any chance for an ...
135 views

### Is there specific name for simple XOR with ADD/SUB encoding?

Several years ago a group of malware authors began using code like this: for (j = 0; j < length; j++) ptr[j] = (ptr[j] ^ VALUEA) - VALUEB; for encoding, and ...
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### Are Anonymity and Authentication possible together?

Anonymity and authentication look to be seemingly contradictory but are both possible together ? I tried reading couple of papers but could not get the big picture. So what are the major approaches ...
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### If I compute the SHA-1 of all possible 40 digits hexadecimal strings, will I get all possible sha1 hashes? [duplicate]

Wikipedia says sha1 produces a 160-bit (20-byte) hash value. So if I compute the SHA-1 of all possible SHA-1 values, which as far as I understand is at current time impossible both to calculate and ...
2k views

### Are common cryptographic hashes bijective when hashing a single block of the same size as the output?

It's been said that CRC-64 is bijective for a 64-bit block. It the corresponding statement true for typical cryptographic hashes, like MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2 or SHA-3? For example, would SHA-512 be ...