# All Questions

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### Are SSL modes with forward secrecy vulnerable to the BEAST attack?

From the original BEAST paper, it seems to me that you need the same session key when encrypting data, so you can check if the original plaintext block is the same as your chosen plaintext (which is ...
595 views

### Is FIPS 140-2's “Continuous random number generator test” practical?

Section 4.9.2 of FIPS PUB 140-2 specifies, amongst other things, a "Continuous random number generator test." Here are the relavant bits: If each call to a[n] RNG produces blocks of n bits ...
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### Is there a problem with this non-ECDSA message signing?

Is there a problem with signing a message like this? ...
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### Using a Hash as a secure PRNG

I was just looking at some NIST PRNG recommendations, specifically at Hash_DRBG. I read briefly through the algorithm, and even though it is not overly complex, it still seems unnecessary to me. I ...
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### Is it possible to actually verify a “sponge function” security claim?

When using a “sponge function” to create a cryptographic hash, we can look at the flat sponge claim, which flattens the claimed success probabilities of all attacks using a single parameter: the ...
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### Decimal point in keyspace notations? (eg 2^54.15)?

I was reading up on CryptoCat's (pretty ridiculous) programming issues and how is dramatically reduced the key search space (link to bug synopsis) One thing that caught my eye was So 2^54.15 ...
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### Snowden Challenge II: Can we solve Snowden challenge quantumly? [closed]

Suppose that tomorrow is July 7, 2050 and Snowden is still stayed in Sheremetyevo airport. Further, let us suppose that quantum computation and quantum commincation are available to everyone, and ...
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### How to compute the attacker's probability?

Given a random bit string $R=r_1r_2\cdots r_n$, let us encrypt each bit $c_i=E(r_i,k_i)$ where $k_i$ is taken from the stream of encryption keys. Suppose that an attacker can guess the correct $r_i$ ...
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### Relation between attack and attack model for signatures

I would like to know: What is the relationship between an attack and an attack model. For example, let $\Pi$ be the Lamport signature scheme. This signature has it's security based on the one-way ...
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### Is this ECC encryption key sharing method okay?

Is this encryption key sharing okay to use? Or is much better to use ECIES? $G$ = base point $a$ = Alice’s private key $b$ = Bob’s private key $A = aG$ = Alice’s public key $B = bG$ = Bob’s public ...
394 views

### A block cipher with independent keys for each round

I want to modify a standard block cipher in the following way. I replace each round key by a key picked at random. Is this block cipher as secure as the original one ? Thank you. EDIT Some missing ...
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### Ideal system for an encryption scheme

What is the ideal system for an encryption scheme? For a pseudorandom permutation the ideal one is a random permutation, for a pseudorandom function the ideal one is a random function. For an ...
289 views

### DSA, RSA, ECDSA etc - which one is cheapest for signing?

For a protocol where the server presents its signature to prove authenticity (e.g. IKE/SIGMA/STS with only one party authenticated), it's essential that the signing is extremely cheap, while ...
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### openssl logs showing keyblock length of only 88 bytes instead of 136 bytes

I was decrypting TLS encrypted data from wireshark using the openssl(TLS1.0 version) TLS logs which provides the complete key block which of size 136 bytes.Now i moved to TLS(1.2 version) in that Key ...
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### Lamport-Diffie + Security Proof

I am studying Lamport-Diffie signature scheme. In the lecture present the algorithm $A'$ for attempting to invert the one way function $f$, where $f$ is used to compute the public key. My question is ...
10k views

One runtime platform provides an API that supplies PKCS#5 padding for block cipher modes such as ECB and CBC. These modes have been defined for the triple DES, AES and Blowfish block ciphers. The ...
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### Encryption schemes and pseudorandom permutations

Can an encryption scheme (deterministic or not) be viewed as a pseudorandom permutation taking as input a message and returning a value of the same bit-encoding length ? Thank you.
150 views

### Generate a new public/private key pair for each new message?

When using PGP type public encrypted communication, would it be a good idea to generate a new public for each message and attach that in the new public key in the reply to back to sender mail body? ...
84 views

### Lamport-Diffie + attempting to invert OWF

I am studying Lamport-Diffie signature scheme and in my lecture present the follow algorithm for attempting to invert the one way function $f$, where $f$ is used to compute the public key of this ...
148 views

### Securely generating passwords based on a secret and a public identifier

I'm trying to create a good scheme for generating passwords in my systems management scripts. What I'd like to do is have a secret key (let's say hello123), which I ...
1k views

### Cryptographic Challenge: How to Say Something Confidentially to Snowden?

The Snowden situation raises an intereting cryptograpic problem. At present, how can something be sent confidentially to Snowden? Claim: I have no particular political orientation. The above ...
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### What current authenticated key exchange standards exist?

If neither of the 'big two' of TLS Handshake and IKE are appropriate in a given situation, what alternative Authenticated Key Exchange (AKE) standards exist and are recommended? Many protocols have ...
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### Authenticated DH, what protocols are secure?

I read about STS + variants being insecure in the SIGMA paper, which then proposes SIGMA as a replacement. Are the SIGMA variants still considered secure or are there some other protocol that's ...
465 views

### Why is “mod(n)” so central to most aspects of cryptography?

When I first started learning cryptography, I had my first a-ha moment when I fully appreciated the value of a One Time Pad and XOR and all the functions that attempt to emulate that OTP's randomness ...
345 views

### Block cipher with key longer than block size

When a block cipher key length is greater than the block length, is it the case that for some keys $k_0, k_1$ (with $k_0 \not= k_1$) and plaintext message $m$ that $E_{k_0}(m) = E_{k_1}(m)$?