# All Questions

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### Bridging the gap between security proofs and “real-world” security

I've been studying cryptography for a little while. I understand fairly well the nuts and bolts of security proofs, but I'm having trouble reconciling the formal statements of security in these proofs ...
135 views

### INT_32_BE in PBKDF2

Trying to understand PBKDF2 in detail. It is clear that the password and the salt is given to the PRF (which is HMAC-SHA-1 in the specification). But what is the role of the INT_32_BE(i)? What does it ...
550 views

### Is there any area where AES-CBC cannot be used ? If so, why ?

I would like to know the domains or specific applications where using AES-CBC is not advised due to any drawbacks like sequential encryption of AES-CBC ?
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### Are there any obvious techncial faults in F. Ruiz's 2013 URSA javascript cryptography? [closed]

The link to the cryptography is here: http://prgomez.com/ursa/ I have found the following simple javascript system of encryption/decryption portable and easy to use for emails and messaging sites, ...
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### Cipher built from GPU primitives [closed]

Is it feasible to build a cipher (or hash) out of GPU or DSP primitives (e.g. big matrix multiplication, Fast Fourier Transform, big block SIMD, or hardware H.264/AVC codec)? Preferably those are slow ...
162 views

### Does brute force attack use the program that created the ciphertext?

I've read several articles about brute force cryptanalytic attacks, but none explicitly say what algorithm is being run for each attempt, nor what criteria is used to declare an attempt a success or a ...
3k views

### Encrypting and obscuring data between site/user without SSL

Im trying to figure out what the best way to encrypt data sent between a webpage and the user(both ways) is, when hosted in an environment that doesn't support SSL. The purpose of encryption would be ...
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### NIZK Proof of knowledge N of M discrete logarithms (threshold)

It is well known how to produce a NIZK that curvepoints $aG$ and $aP$ have the same discrete logarithm $a$ with respect to the curvepoints they are multiplied by. There is also a way to prove that a ...
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### Brute Force Attack Strategies

A Brute Force Attack obviously involves attempting to decrypt ciphertext (with the associated plaintext being known) using all possible encryption keys. Aside from attempting all possible ...
847 views

### Is there benefit to signing unencrypted emails?

I came to this article from another comment on Crypto StackExchange. After reading it, I am wondering if there is any benefit to using a digital signature on unencrypted S/MIME emails?
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### Vigenere ciphertext encrypted with another vigenere cipher

I have been learning about Vigenere ciphers and then thought of this scenario: if a cryptographer encrypts a plaintext English message with a Vigenere cipher and then another cryptographer, who wants ...
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### Hash function and indifferentiability [closed]

What are the properties derived from the fact that a hash function is indifferentiable from a random oracle?
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### See any problems with this search-specific homomorphic encoding strategy?

I'm imagining this for use in the scenario of cloud-stored client-encrypted email, where, when seeking to do a string search across messages, you don't want to have to download every stored message in ...
79 views

### Keccak and compression functions

Keccak follows a sponge construction. Can we say that Keccak employs a compression function? Generally speaking, for sponge constructions, can we say that there is an underlying compression function? ...
115 views

### Determining average number of hash calls to get a hash that begins with X

I have been attempting to find an answer to a self-study question: If I have a hash algorithm that outputs 256 binary bits, on average, how many times would I have to call the hash function so ...
241 views

### Reusing message in One Time Pad

One of the main rules of the OTP is, that a key should never ever be reused. But if we use some commutative operation (XOR for example) for generating the cipher text, then I don't see any difference ...
165 views

### Roots of polynomial in Shamir secret sharing

I need to know whether one can obtain any roots of the polynomial in Shamir secret sharing if he possesses less than threshold shares. For instance in (t,n) if he has t-1 shares can he obtain any ...
81 views

### stream cipher computation cost [closed]

With AES-CTR the computation time to encrypt a message of lengh $n$ blocks is $n$ computations of the block cipher. What is the running time to encrypt a message of $n$ bits using a stream cipher, ...
49 views

### Group Dependent Language

The text below has been taken from the below paper Groth-Sahai Paper. The relevant part is highlighted in red. What does this group-dependent language mean in this context? From the definition of a ...
224 views

### Strategy to crack a presumed substitution cipher

The ciphertext given is: ejitp spawa qleji taiul rtwll rflrl laoat wsqqj atgac kthls iraoa twlpl qjatw jufrh lhuts qataq itats aittk stqfj cae I've done ...
68 views

### Don't Understand these Parameters

I don't understand section 3 of the paper Fully Homomorphic Encryption over the Integers. How can one calculate these paramters and make these equations in pictures into code?
204 views

### What is the (uncompressed) x,y-representation of a curve point on the P-256 NIST elliptic curve?

I am trying to understand the FIDO U2F Raw Message Format, especially the format in which a user public key should be provided. The documentation says the following: A user public key [65 bytes]. ...
496 views

### Key management for military GPS receivers

I wonder what encryption scheme is used in high-precision encrypted GPS streams (the so-called “P(Y) code”). If there's a master key needed, then it has to be in every device. Yet the master key ...
43 views

### impersonating attack against a protocol

recently I'm reading Efficient eCK-secure Authenticated Key Exchange Protocols in the Standard Model, and I sense that the scheme in the following(the reader can refer to the paper for details) is ...
144 views

### What is “msg = group.random(GT)” in Charm encryption schemes?

In many encryption schemes in Charm the random group message is used instead of a text-message: msg = group.random(GT) For example, in CP-ABE scheme, random ...
231 views

### what is the difference between IBE and ABE schemes

Can somebody explain in simple words. real life example light help and limitations of these schemes etc.
1k views

### SHA1 no longer considered secure for SSL Certificates — what about Cipher Suites?

Many browsers and Internet companies have recently claimed that SSL Certificates with a signature algorithm of SHA1 will imminently no longer be considered secure. Most notably, Google and Google ...
63 views

### Deprecation of RSA-SHA-1 in DKIM keys?

I recently noticed that OpenDKIM on my mail server is objecting to DKIM signatures from a client, saying their key is insecure. It may be that that's due to lack of secure DNS (confirmation anyone?) ...
278 views

### How do disk encryption programs solve the “IV problem”?

I was reading a paper on the "elephant diffuser" used in BitLocker and it got me wondering how other systems (e.g. TrueCrypt before it shutdown) solved the problem the elephant diffuser was meant to ...
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### Basic question about design of program with data encryption

I need to store encrypted files on a hard disk. The actual code side is not important for me now (I plan to use C# and AES-GCM encryption from Bouncy Castle library, please tell me if you think that's ...
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### Ability to locate free sectors on an encrypted volume

I am trying to understand, generally how could this be a security issue ? Assuming the volume's backing media has this weakness (lets say an NTFS sparse file based TrueCrypt container) what could the ...
84 views

### Problem understanding the construction of block cipher distinguishers

I know a block cipher distinguisher is an algorithm which can predict with high probability whether a system is a random permutation or a block cipher by asking a few queries to the system. My ...
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### Is appending the hash of the plaintext to the end of an encrypted message sufficient to ensure integrity?

Is appending the hash of the plaintext to the end of an encrypted message sufficient to ensure integrity? My reasoning is that the attacker doesn't know all the plaintext, so by having a hash, the ...
62 views

### Forward pseudorandom permutation [closed]

Please consider the following scenario: The user A and B use their keys, K1 and K2 respectively. Each client have a vector of elements. Each client separately permutes his vector using his key and ...
286 views

Is there any consensus (i.e. are there any research results) on the benefits and drawbacks of various padding schemes? Generally there seem to be two kinds of them: random paddings, like ISO10126 ...
272 views

### Bouncy Castle elliptic curve from explicit parameters (E-521)

I'd like to use a curve that's not included in the Bouncy Castle EC named curves spec, specifically E-521. According to the BC javadocs, you need a few values in order to do this: q, a, and b for the ...
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### Perform general computation using a crypto algorithm as a building block

I have a somewhat special question. In our software we use a existing dongle which got cracked by our customers. The protection offered by the dongle isn't very sophisticated. For the moment I can't ...
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### Is elliptic curve point multiplication semantically secure?

Is elliptic curve point multiplication semantically secure? I'd like to know if there are some sets of elliptic curve parameters (e.g. NIST curves) that are proved to be semantically secure or that ...
1k views

### Why do the elliptic curves recommended by NIST use 521 bits rather than 512?

Wikipedia says in reference to the elliptic curves officially recommended by NIST in FIPS 186-3: Five prime fields for certain primes p of sizes 192, 224, 256, 384, and 521 bits. For each of the ...
166 views

### Security properties and Cryptography objectives applied in algorithms

We all know there are five properties of Security. They are: Confidentiality Availability Authorization Integrity and Provenance As Security and Cryptography are co-related these properties ...
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### exchanging private key between service and iPhone app - digital signing

I need to do digital signing of my request data which will be sent to the server. My server sends distinct private keys to her clients after authentication and expects all responses to be digitally ...