# All Questions

351 views

### What prevents a padding standard to cause a data loss?

In here different byte padding standards are listed as ANSI X.923, ISO 101.26, PKCS7, ISO/IEC 7816-4 and zero padding. All of them seems to apply padding to the last byte blocks. Odds are rare but ...
5k views

### Cipher Feedback Mode

I can't understand what CFB really is. It said in Wikipedia that CFB is same as CBC, but I find that CFB is more difficult than CBC. Can someone explain to me how CFB works. Such as how ...
174 views

### Hash Based Encryption (fast & simple), how well would this compare to AES? [duplicate]

First of all, I know it's a very bad idea to invent your own encryption algorithm. It's better to use existing known, trusted, extensively tested and studied algorithms with a proven track record. The ...
88 views

### counter to indicate hotp count

I was trying to figure out how HOTP kept from wrapping over, when I saw this explanation of how it works, by Thomas Pornin [source]: The intended scenario is the following: the client has a ...
225 views

### Is this an acceptable implementation of ARC4 encryption for my system?

I am building an open source hardware system that will be used to control things over the internet. The system consists of a Base Station and Modules which use wireless communication at 2.4GHz to ...
481 views

### Difference between known-plaintext attack and forward search attack

I am looking at the different attacks on RSA. I came across known-plaintext attack where the public key can be used to encrypt all possible messages until it finds a match on the sent encrypted ...
2k views

### How is input message for SHA-2 padded?

I read about how is an input message prepared to be hashed by MD4,MD5 or SHA-1: Step1 Append padding bits The input message is "padded" (extended) so that its length (in bits) equals to 448 ...
109 views

### Why do we apply the concept of circuit in homomorphic encryption schemes?

I am a beginner to the concept of homomorphic encryption. One thing that makes me very confused is why we use the circuit concept or approach to homomorphic encryption. Gentry's paper does not discuss ...
128 views

### Should different key pairs be used for signing and encryption?

In the recent iOS Security white paper from Apple (February 2014), the section on iMessage discusses using two different asymmetric key types as part of its standard operation: When a user turns ...
266 views

### Difference RSA keypair creation openSSL and openPGP?

Creating a 2048bits RSA keypair I figured that doing this using openssl takes as an input 32bytes of "randomness" from /dev/urandom gpg (openGPG) takes as input ...
534 views

### RSA problem if i choose two specific small prime numbers?

I know that rsa normally is made to make it with big integers, but i trying to make the algorithm myself (with the help of wikipedia) and I´m making it with small numbers to track the problems easily. ...
186 views

### distribution for a subset of md5

I need to uniquely assign a 32 bit integer to a collection of human readable strings (i.e. they will not be generated with hash collision in mind). I don't expect more than a few thousand strings. I ...
135 views

### Verifying multiplicative inverse on a prime field in NIST's ECDSA_Prime.pdf

I am trying to learn about the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) by verifying the results in some example calculations. I found a PDF of example ECDSA calculations from NIST here: ...
347 views

### Reusing AES-CTR Keys and IVs for File Encryption

I’m implementing some file encryption module with random-access capability and AES-CTR seems the right way to go. I understand that reusing Keys and IVs can expose the file to ‘Stream Cipher Attacks’ ...
105 views

### Trying to calculate the strength of a Bitcoin brain wallet created with a custom diceware password

I want to create a brain wallet using a custom diceware since I don't like the original one. Instead of 7776 words it has 46656 because I use 6 dice for each word instead of 5, and also it only has ...
46 views

### Affine encryption function

Let $f(x) = ax + b$ be an affine encryption function. $a$ and the cardinal of the field of our keys $K$ (in English, 26) must be coprime so that the encryption ...
94 views

### Modular protocol design

What does modular protocol design mean? Why does TLS not have modular protocol design? What protocols have modular design? (IPSec, SSH)
147 views

### Are there use cases where a signature itself needs to be signed?

I'm writing some code to digitally sign certain files (JSON, if you must know), and I'm trying to understand the use cases, not being a crypto guy myself. I understand there are use cases where ...
495 views

### Is the One Time Pad (OTP) considered a cryptographic hash function?

As the title states, would the One Time Pad (OTP) be considered a cryptographic hash function?
70 views

### Obfuscating point-like functions

There are standard schemes for obfuscating a point function; I'm wondering if we know how to obfuscate a slight generalization of a point function. I'll elaborate more precisely. Definition 1. A ...
6k views

### How to solve MixColumns

I can't really understand MixColumns in Advanced Encryption Standard, can anyone help me how to do this? I found some topic in the internet about MixColumns, but I still have a lot of question to ...
593 views

### How to perform Multiplicative Inverse Modulo in IDEA

How to perform the Multiplicative Inverse Modulo in International Data Encryption Algorithm? I don't understand on how to perform it… For example, let's say I have a value of ...
313 views

### Is it possible to work out the hash algorithm from a list of known message-hash pairs?

For example, in my situation I know hash(20) = 486e9638177faf1f34e49910491b77af. I also know the hashes for all values from 0 to 20. Is it possible to work out the ...
330 views

### Padding of Original Message in MD5

what should I do if my original message is greater than 64 bits? what is the process of padding in MD5? As described in Internet Security: Cryptographic Principles, Algorithms and Protocols, page ...
639 views

### Is this a pseudo random function (PRF)? F(k,x) = f(k,x) - f(k,x-1)

I have a question about Pseudo Random Functions. Let $f:\{0,1\}^m \times \{0,1\}^n → \{0,1\}^n$ be a secure PRF. Define $F(k,x) = f(k,x) - f(k, x-1 \bmod 2^{n}) \bmod 2^{n}$. Is $F$ is a secure ...
556 views

### Which eliptic curves in OpenSSL 1.0.1f meet all / most of the SafeCurves requirements? [closed]

I am using nginx compiled with OpenSSL 1.0.1f (most current release available). Nginx allows administrators to set a configuration parameter called ssl_ecdh_curve, ...
404 views

### KCV and compatibility with block cipher modes of operation

There has been lately a question on KCV (key check value), value provided by many CRYPTOKI (PKCS#11) implementations. I don't particularly like KCV, but I decided to ask about proper use of KCV. ...
2k views

### Why does SHA-1 have 80 rounds?

Why does SHA-1 algorithm have exactly 80 rounds? Is it to reduce collisions? If yes, then why do SHA-2 and SHA-3 have a lower number of rounds?
103 views

### Is there need for message authentication if a public key is transmitted and then used to encrypt a symmetric key?

First I'd like to note that I'm really a beginner at cryptography, and while this interests me and while I have researched it in the past few months, there is still a lot of things that simply aren't ...
118 views

### How can I show that the DDH problem is self-reducible?

I have trouble to understand how I can show that the Decisional Diffie-Hellman problem (DDH) is self-reducible. I found this as a description of a random self-reducible problem. ...
156 views

### ElGamal with elliptic curves I

It is very interesting to see @tylo's answer on ElGamal with elliptic curves. Instead of mapping the message to the elliptic curve point it just reduces an elliptic curve point to its $x$ coodrinate. ...
115 views

### How to best mix two arbitrary/random n-bit words? [closed]

Given two arbitrary/random $n$-bit words, how could one best mix them to get one $n$-bit word for general crypto usages? I suppose that one should have an adequate measure of goodness of the mix ...
103 views

### Linear Cryptanalysis - possible without plaintext?

If Linear Cryptanalysis exploits the fact that the plaintext and ciphertext are not completely unrelated, is the attack possible without having access to the plaintext?
541 views

### Mapping of message onto elliptic curve and reverse it

I would like to perform a variant of Elliptic Curve ElGamal in java using the BouncyCastle libraries. I currently face the difficulty of mapping a message $m$ onto the elliptic curve $E_p$. I have so ...
335 views

### How is a public key actually used to encrypt something?

One thing cryptography articles never seem to explain is how the message actually gets encrypted. You get this long-winded lecture on number theory which ends with, Ta Da! and we have a public and ...
150 views

### Would a symmetric cipher with a keylength a big as the data length be information theoretically secure?

One-Time-Pad is information theoretically secure as long as the random number stream is evenly long or longer than the data stream it encrypts, for a "decyphered" message could have been any message ...
75 views

### How does the key size per data bit influence the security?

The likelihood of breaking, for instance, an AES-128 cipher is 100% after $2^{128}$ tries in brute force, meaning that I've got to try $2^{128}$ keys to certainly break it. What if I (hypothetically) ...
85 views

### Terminology: What is the word describing a hash key, a crypto key, and a certificate?

If I want to check the integrity of some piece of data, I can check that a cryptographic hash of the data corresponds to a known hash. Alternatively I can also check a digital signature on the data ...
55 views

### Where did Martin Hellman acknowledge Ralph Merkle's contribution to public-key cryptography?

I am trying to find the article to reference when discussing the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. According to Wikipedia Hellman said that The system...has since become known as Diffie–Hellman key ...
212 views

### Key expiration policy for 3DES / TDES / Triple DES

I have a system that signs plain text messages using a message authentication code (MAC) encrypted with 3-key Triple DES. The short message is used on connection to establish a session key, so it ...
109 views

### Modular exponentiation with Chinese Remainder Theorem

I'm learning modular exponentiation with Chinese remainder theorem. I found a great answer from below How can I use eulers totient and the chinese remainder theorem for modular exponentiation? But I ...
156 views

### What is the “purpose” byte in Crypto++ PBKDF2?

Does anyone know the purpose of the "purpose" byte in the PBKDF2 implementation in Crypto++? It appears that the PBKDF2 does not use this byte, but I want to make sure I am not setting the option to ...
166 views

### Semantic Security Active or Passive attacks?

I'm reading A Practical Public Key Cryptosystem Provably Secure against Adaptive Chosen Ciphertext Attack and here define Semantic Security ... Semantic security, dened by Goldwasser and Micali ...
251 views

### Entropy test for AES Key Schedule

According to the article "Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys" there is a quick and dirty entropy test that can help to find possible AES Key Schedules in memory dumps. Although ...
67 views

### Timing attacks against RSA, DH and AES

I have been reading about “Timing Attacks on RSA: Revealing Your Secrets through the Fourth Dimension” by Wing H. Wong. I was wondering if this attack is feasible while signing with RSA and, if yes, ...
26 views

### Is there a flaw in whole disk encryption vs volume or folder encryption? [duplicate]

My company just implemented whole disk encryption on all laptops (Symantec) and the concept seems flawed. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I have known file in plain text and that same file in ...
146 views

### Private set intersection, using a semi-trusted server

Alice has a set $S$ of words. Bob has a set $T$ of words. They want to compute the intersection $S \cap T$ of their words, with the help of a semi-trusted third party Trent. Trent runs a central ...
202 views

### Long-term data protection, storage of old encrypted traffic and quantum cryptocalipse

Tony Arcieri makes an interesting point in his Imperfect Forward Secrecy article which basically boils down to: large entities such as NSA are storing encrypted internet traffic, also what's to stop ...