# All Questions

480 views

### Is it safe to reuse a symmetric key when using asymmetric encryption?

I've written a C# Library that I hope will be used for security purposes in a commercial application. The application will communicate through the internet and not on an internal network. I am using ...
30 views

### Authenticate encrypted seed for KEM + AEAD hybrid cryptosystem

Say I want to encrypt something using RSA / KEM and an authenticated cipher. I encrypt using the following scheme: generate random seed z using ...
191 views

### Reason for replacing mifare classic

As you know there occured some successful attacks again mifare classic tags (manufactured by NXP) and therefore NXP recommends to replace these tags with some newer products like mifare pro desfire ...
375 views

### RSA: Is it secure to use the private key to encrypt and the public key to decrypt?

This may sound weird: What if I don't let others know my public key, then use my private key to encrypt, and the public key to decrypt? Is this secure? Let me explain a little bit: Common usuage: ...
79 views

### If my server utilises an RSA based certificate, why does firefox think I am using Diffie Hellman?

I am not a beginner in crypto, but not that far from it, so please be gentle. I look after a web server app that I generated the SSL certificate for, and I used an RSA public/private keypair. When ...
37 views

### Variable length variable output encryption with out any padding?

I would like to know if there is any encryption algorithm with variable input variable output with out any padding? For example if I give 16(17,18,67,117,..any size) bit plaintext, my ciphertext is ...
47 views

### What is the hardness in Decisional Linear Assumption (DLIN)?

I had understood what does the DLIN assumption means and here is a related question. But I fail to understand the 'real hardness' in this problem. I would be grateful if someone can help me to ...
83 views

### Is it possible to encrypt data points but still be able to select the ones “near” a given value?

We have an application where we would like to store "encrypted" data points (as in, not being able to know the original - plaintext - data just by looking at the stored - encrypted - version of it) ...
92 views

### Is Shoup's Practical Threshold Signatures considered secure?

I am planning to use threshold cryptography in a Java application. So far, I have only found ThresSig and a ECDSA implementation used in TwoFactorBtcWallet. However, ThresSig is based on a 15-years ...
46 views

### (Uniformly) Random Value when an element is picked with $\frac{1}{p-1}- \frac{1}{(p-1)^2}\$ probability

Let's $\mathbb{F}_p$ be a finite field where $p$ is a large prime number(e.g. 256-bit) I know if the probability that an element picked from the field is $\frac{1}{p-1}$ we say the element is picked ...
132 views

### How to enforce data privacy, integrity and authenticity of distributed firmware images for an embedded device?

I'm developing a bootloader for an embedded device, with which it should be possible for customers (i.e. device owners) to update the device's firmware. It is required that: the firmware is ...
38 views

### How does FileVault2 Recovery actually work?

I'm a crypto-enthusiast but no expert at all, that'll explain why i didn't understand. Also please consider english isn't my native language :) I am about to enable FileVault2 FDE on the new macbook ...
49 views

### Could someone explain the given algorithm?

The following snapshot of the algorithm is taken from the book Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography published by Springer 2004. I don't understand that why at the statement 9.1 if both $T_1$ and ...
135 views

### ECDH and ECDSA in PGP with known public key

How are used ECDH and ECDSA in combination with public key ? Usually these methods are used for establish a secret themselves, ...
386 views

### How long does it take to brute force a Wordpress password?

I'm not a cryptograhpy expert, I am a web developer trying to determine the origin of a Wordpress blog hack, and how likely it is that it was brute forced. The administrator account username had been ...
85 views

### How To prove Any Change to $v=a\cdot y+b$ maks $y=(a)^{−1}\cdot (v−b)$ Uni. random value [closed]

This question is related to data integrity. Let a finite field be $\mathbb{F}_p$, where $p$ is a prime number. I have a fixed value $y$ and two uniformly random values $a$ and $b$. Hypothesis: ...
86 views

### Efficiency of McEliece cryptography (ciphertext expansion)

Most of the sources say McEliece has never gained acceptance because of its large size of private and public keys. However I have never heard about the size (or length) of its ciphertext. ...
107 views

### OpenPGP Public-Key algorithm

What means when pgpdump shows this kind of algorithm in the Public-Key Encrypted Session Key Packet? ...
126 views

### What is tiger192,4 in PHP?

PHP supports hashing of the following Tiger algorithms: tiger128,3 tiger160,3 tiger192,3 tiger128,4 tiger160,4 tiger192,4 Wikipedia's entry on Tiger says there's Tiger and Tiger2 and provides ...
70 views

### How did G.H. Hardy's work contribute to today's public-key cryptography?

I know that Hardy's work in number theory was used by Clifford Cocks in 1973 to develop the basis for public-key cryptography. What specifically was this work, and how is it used today in ...
163 views

### Whats the point of an IV if public? [duplicate]

What is the point of the initialization vector in cryptographic modes like AES-CBC when it is sent in the public? Cant any attacker just listen and reverse the IV? and as such defeating its purpose? ...
448 views

### Encryption algorithm used in WPA/WPA2

I want to know how EXACTLY the WPA password gets encrypted I have been searching through and I was able to catch: The actual password is converted to some hash Salting is applied to the hash The ...
79 views

### Fixed-points in block ciphers; why don't they indicate a vulnerability?

I've seen a few questions here on fixed-points in ciphers, most asking about the possibility and existence. Most of the answers however pointed out that fixed points are not exactly a security threat. ...
902 views

### What are the strenghts and weaknesses of Whirlpool Hashing Algorithm

I want to find out if the Whirlpool hashing algorithm have any weaknesses. There are quite a bit of articles explaining the strengths of this algorithm, but for some reason I cannot find any on its ...
727 views

### SHA-256 Reversing A String of Equal Length

I've done a lot of reading on how SHA-256, I've found that SHA-256 is irreversible because more data is fed into the hashed string than the hash string contains. But, what if the data that was ...
72 views

### Is it possible to have E=D and Ke <> Kd?

Let us consider $E$ an encryption algorithm that encrypts a message $m$ into a ciphertext $c$ using a key $K_e$. i.e $c = E(K_e, m)$. Similarly, decryption is achieved by $m = D(K_d, c)$. Is there ...
123 views

### Two rounds of SHA-256 HMAC?

In a project we are working on, we have two applications within our datacenter that exchange messages. The messages are protected by an HMAC, and the secret key is stored on a SafeNet device. Update ...
97 views

### Do Curtmola et al.'s IND-CKA1/2 security definitions protect against search pattern leakage?

In the article Searchable Symmetric Encryption: Improved Definitions and Efficient Constructions, Curtmola et al. propose adaptive and non-adaptive (indistinguishability and simulator-based) security ...
84 views

### Possibility of the encrypted text being the same as the supplied plain text! [duplicate]

I was learning DES when it occurred to me that there could be a possible case where a (key, plainText) pair could result in an ...
144 views

### TLS1.2 Client Finished Message

Can someone make sure I'm creating my Client finished message properly as I've been working at this for days and keep getting a Bad record MAC error and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. First ...
550 views

### How to calculate elliptic curve parameters?

I'm having a rough time understanding the math behind elliptic curves. I want to implement ECDH where user can define a, b, and p parameters of elliptic curve. How can I calculate generator base ...
214 views

### On the fly signatures and zero-knowledge

I am reading some articles which explain on the fly signatures (also called online/offine signatures). The principle is that a few operations do not depend of the message we want to sign, so these ...
36 views

### Encrypted Data length in a CBC Block Cipher

The RFC5246 states the following: The encrypted data length (TLSCiphertext.length) is one more than the sum of SecurityParameters.block_length, TLSCompressed.length, ...
60 views

### Using Skein as PRNG

I have read that the Skein hash can be used for quite a few different functions, including a PRNG. Would using the 1024 Skein hash to return 16KB of data be appropriate for a PRNG? Or would it only be ...
64 views

### PRF and pairwise independent hash function

I'm confused with the concepts of pairwise independent hash function and pseudorandom function. They seem identical to me. A family of hash functions $H=\{ h:U \to [m] \}$ is $k$-independent if for ...
104 views

### What procedure to use to verify a raw public key (TLS ECDHE_EDCSA ciphersuite)?

Contrary of verifying a certificate which is a well-known procedure, I am wondering what the procedure is to verify a raw public key 'certificate' (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7250). This ...
281 views

### How to derive a symmetric key from ECDH shared secret?

I am trying to implement the internal primitives of ECDH. Currently I'm able to multiply the receiver's public EC point with the sender's private key to arrive at the shared EC point. Next step is to ...
98 views

### have a question in the book “introduction to modern cryptography”

"introduction to modern cryptography. 2ed" in page 254 "By obtaining sufficiently many estimates and letting $x_{i}$ be the majority value, $A{'}$can ensure that $x_{i}$ is equal to $gl(x, e^{i})$ ...
97 views

### Hashing entropy with only 128 bits of internal state

I am looking to implement the Fortuna algorithm (https://www.schneier.com/fortuna.pdf) on a system with very restrictive memory constraints, using AES-128 as the underlying cipher. As the key size is ...
61 views

### Most Secure Exchange of Keys [closed]

Given both Alice and Bob must exchange IP addresses to perform such an operation, what is the most secure way Alice and Bob can exchange public keys between two mobile devices without having to rely ...
158 views

### CBC-MAC just to verify integrity

I have a message and I want to verify its integrity and authenticity. I have a shared secret (key) that is not used for other encryption. Is it safe to send a plaintext message containing all the ...
139 views

### Where is Signaturevalue in Certificate?

Where is the Digital Signature value in my certificate? I can find Signature Algorithm and Signature Hash algorithm. Also why there are two fields specifying the Signature's Hash? With Signature ...
84 views

### Finding Galois LFSR and its initial configuration

Suppose recursion for output of Galois LFSR is $u_1=u_3=u_4=0$ What kind of taps are here, and initial state? How to uncover this information?
56 views

### Do $v_1=\alpha\cdot r_1$ and $v_2=\alpha\cdot r_2$ leak information about $\alpha$

Please consider we have finite field $\mathbb{F}_p$ for large prime number $p$. We have a fixed field element $\alpha$. By $r_i\leftarrow \mathbb{F}_p$ we mean we pick $r_i$ uniformly random from the ...
81 views

### Use of the IV for the CBC Block Cipher in TLS1.2

I'm struggling to understand at what point a message is encrypted when looking at RFC 5246. The spec gives the generic block cipher in section 6.2.3.2 as: ...
452 views

### Why can ssh-keygen export a public key in PEM PKCS8 format?

In the documentation of ssh-keygen (man ssh-keygen) it says for the option -m that an export ...
156 views

### How much processing power should you assume an attacker has?

The answer to this question says that you should assume an attacker can do one billion operations per second: Key Size for Symmetric Homomorphic Encryption Over the Integers Is that a single attacker ...
37 views

### TLS Cipher Suite definitions

Based off the various cipher suites available for TLS (which I am looking at here:https://www.thesprawl.org/research/tls-and-ssl-cipher-suites/), can anyone clarify if when the suite contains 'SHA', ...
Let $\quad E:\; y^2 = x^3 + ax + b \quad$ be an elliptic curve defined over a finite field $\mathbb F_q$ where $q = p^n$, $a,b \in \mathbb F_q$ and $p \neq 2, 3$. By Hasse's theorem we know that the ...