# All Questions

500 views

### Why restricting SHA3 to have only two possible capacities?

I just read the presentation slides of John M. Kesley (from NIST) for his invited talk at CHES 2013 about SHA-3 and learned that NIST is going to standardize Keccak with a possibly modified padding ...
1k views

### Diffie-Hellman: choosing wrong generator “g” parameter and its implications of practical attacks

In traditional DH one chooses two shared parameters: a large prime "p" and base "g", which is primitive root mod "p". Suppose generation algorithm is broken and "g" generates only a subgroup (group ...
148 views

### RC4 system pitfalls

A system fell into my neck, where lots of files are splitted into several segments and encoded via RC4. RC4, because client side - slow computer, slow flash arithmetic ops - can only decode big blobs ...
111 views

### Authentication protocols for authenticating devices to a server

The requirement is to authenticate 1000s of devices to a server when the devices try to contact the server. The problem I face is that all authentication protocols require some kind of shared secret ...
207 views

### Why no swapping block in the last round of DES?

Round 16 on the encryption side, and round 16 on the decryption side of DES have no swapping module. Why is it like this? Can anyone provide any justification? This is my homework question.
345 views

### Should I delete cryptographic data from memory?

When dealing with cryptographic data, is there a chance that attacker recovers portion of data I used in my program? Should I try to delete every bit of keys and encrypted data that I used, overwrite ...
414 views

### Perfect zero knowledge for the Schnorr protocol?

Can somebody explain (or point to a reference) why the Schnorr protocol cannot be proved zero knowledge?
110 views

### Do any (non-hardware) RNGs exist which could be used to create an OTP for crypto purposes?

I've stumbled (jobwise) over a system where small messages (512 Bytes or less) are encrypted and decrypted using a simple XOR using a OTP. That OTP is created using a seed based on the individual user ...
2k views

### ElGamal with elliptic curves

I've searched some information on ECC, but so far I have only found Diffie-Hellman key-exchange implementations using ECC, but I don't want to exchange keys, I want to encrypt & decrypt data like ...
304 views

### KDF and number of iterations for GPG

I gather, from reading the GPG manual, that symmetric encryption based on a password uses one of a variety of Key Derivation Functions (KDF). Although not explicitly mentioned I assume that PBKDF2 is ...
521 views

### Lagrange Interpolation for finite field GF(2^8), for Secret Reconstruction

I'm using Lagrange's Interpolation technique to reconstruct the secret from a set of point pairs (x,y). Since I only need the secret, not the whole polynomial, I have simplified the reconstruction ...
216 views

### random number generator and seed

I'm working with openssl cryptographic libraries, I'm new to all these cryptographic stuffs and slowly I'm learning all these. I have a doubt regarding random number generator, I'm using ...
122 views

### The “Square Root” Solution of Oblivious RAM Simulation

I am reading the paper Software Protection and Simulation on Oblivious RAMs by Oded Goldreich and Rafail Ostrovsky. And I wonder about the description of the "Square Root" solution of oblivious RAM ...
2k views

### Multiplication/Division in Galois Field (2^8)

I'm attempting to implement multiplication and division in $GF(2^8)$ using log and exponential tables. I'm using the exponent of 3 as my generator, using instructions from here. However I'm having ...
217 views

### What is the origin of the word “Keccak”?

Where does the word or acronym Keccak come from? Guido Bertoni, Joan Daemen, Michael Peeters, and Gilles Van Assche. Keccak sponge function family main document. Submission to NIST (updated), 2009. ...
339 views

### Implementing a one-time pad without binary?

This is a program that I found which takes a purely alphabetical message, converts the letters to their ASCII values and combines them with the ASCII values of an alphabetical key (wrapping around ...
255 views

### Generating an IV for ESP 3DES-CBC

I have an application written in C, running in Linux. It uses IPsec (ESP) (manually putting the IPSec packet together) to send certain packets. The algorithm used ...
346 views

### Do ciphertexts leak information about their algorithmic creators?

If an adversary holds thousands of encrypted files that were encrypted with the same cipher, can he determine which cipher method had been used on the files? Assume that the adversary has no prior ...
72 views

### Is size Q equal to size SHA(Q)? [closed]

Assume d is a 128 bit random integer and P is base point of an elliptic curve and Q = dP is a point on the elliptic curve and SHA is a hash function with 128 bit output, my question is: Is size Q ...
269 views

### Is there a public key encryption scheme with optimal key size?

Symmetric encryption schemes such as AES have known security levels equal to their key sizes (i.e. breaking an encryption with an $n$ bit key needs about $2^n$ work steps). Elliptic curve encryption ...
359 views

### Quadratic residue problem on composite integers

Its believed that the quadratic residue modulo $n=p·q$ for large primes $p$ and $q$ is intractable, which forms the basis of some cryptosystems. However, it is solvable if the factors of $n$ are ...
189 views

### hardware and software optimizations for Salsa20

I'm using the Crypto++ implementation of Salsa20 for a software project we are working on and I'd like to know if there are any SSE or software optimizations that will increase the speed of the CSPNG? ...
240 views

### Is it possible that two distinct RSA moduli share both of their prime factors?

I am using an algorithm (can be found here1) that can compute efficiently the GCD of multiple RSA keys. It intended for RSA keys that were generated with low entropy and may have one of their primes ...
237 views

### Why have hashes when you have MACs?

It would seem to a naive eye that if you have a MAC, you have a hash function: use a key that all the parties know (such as all-bits-zero). A potential application would be a resource-constrained ...
177 views

### Does CBC encryption of a hash provide authenticity?

Given a message $M$ and a cryptographic hash function $H$, let $f(M) = E_K(M || H(M))$ where $E_K$ is AES-128-CBC encryption with PKCS#5 padding. Take $H = \textrm{SHA-256}$ if it matters. In other ...
402 views

### Keepass Twofish plugin security

Keepass is a well known open-source password manager program, with plugin support. One of the offered plugin is a twofish encryption mode of operation in lieu of the build-in AES algorithm ...
314 views

### What signature schemes allow recovering the public key from a signature?

It seems to be possible to retrieve the (public) key used for creating an ECDSA signature just from the signature alone. This seems like an interesting property; as far as I know, RSA doesn't share ...
112 views

### Three-way key exchange with elliptic curves without pairing

Assume that there are three users, each with their own secret key $d_i$ and the corresponding public key $Q_i = d_i \cdot P$, such that $Q_i$ is a point on an elliptic curve and $P$ is a base point on ...
111 views

119 views

### Can anyone explain most popular RSA attacks like I'm 5?

Suppose I implement RSA myself in C and I use just the formulas from number theory. What attacks would my implementation be vulnerable to? Can anyone explain this to me like I'm 5?
826 views

### RSA random prime generator

What is the current standard of random bit generators? RSA relies on two large prime numbers, and I am wondering what is the algorithm used to generate such numbers?
993 views

### Why is the P-521 elliptic curve not in Suite B if AES-256 is?

In the NSA's document, "The Case for Elliptic Curve Cryptography", we have ...
1k views

### Will our app be FIPS 140-2 compliant if we use our own AES algorithm implementation?

We are in the processing to understand if our software applications is FIPS 140-2 compliant or not. Currently in our application, we are using our own implementation of AES algorithm. AES is a FIPS ...
6k views

### How does RSA signature verification work?

I understand how the RSA algorithm works for encryption and decryption purposes but I don't get how signing is done. Here's what I (think) I know and is common practice: If I have a message that I ...
149 views

### Understanding the “cube-root math” behind an RSA signature forgery

I'm trying to understand the math outlined in this paper on a RSA signature forgery attack. I understand it except for one aspect of how the cube root (that makes the forged signature) is computed. ...
212 views

### How resilient to attackers with extreme resources available is this encryption method?

How could the following scheme be made more resilient to attacks capable of utilizing massive amounts of resources? Assume all random values are cryptographically secure. Key derivation: scrypt ...
180 views

### Brute force attack on RSA - success criteria?

In a hypothetical discussion we ended up with a concrete question I'd like to find the answer to: If you try to brute force an RSA encryption, but the original vale which was encrypted was just ...
1k views

### Is a 1024-bit DSA key considered safe?

I created my PGP key in 2000. I’ve revoked the older, weaker sub-keys in favor of a 4096-bit RSA one, but the primary key is 1024-bit DSA. I read on Wikipedia that… NIST 800-57 recommends lengths ...