# All Questions

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### How to protect against ephemeral key reuse in some signature schemes?

Given that some signature schemes (for instance Elgamal) use an ephemeral key that cannot be reused ever. How do people usually protect against this? I'll elaborate more: if you reuse the ephemeral ...
169 views

### Shamir Secret Sharing Modular Reduction

Say players use Shamir's secret sharing to share a value $k$ such that each player now holds $k_i$, a share of $k$. How can they securely compute $k \bmod m$ for some $m$. Of course they can ...
194 views

### Secure degree reduction for Shamir's secret sharing

I understand the basic Shamir Secret Sharing protocol, and when two shares are multiplied, the degree of the polynomial increases. I've seen in a number of papers a reference to a degree reduction ...
852 views

### RSA with composite numbers

It has been said that RSA uses a modulus product of two prime numbers for security reasons. But does RSA even work correctly if we allow composite integers instead? I think that the answer is "NO". ...
326 views

### What does “Inverting the RSA function is as hard as factoring” mean (a rigorous explanation or intuitive will do)?

I was reading that a current open problem is if inverting the RSA function is as hard as factoring. Does this mean that, its an open problem whether, if given a subroutine that computes in ...
185 views

### Impact of distinguishing between random text and cipher text?

In theory, distinguishing cipher text from random text is considered insecure for any PRP algorithm. Say for example - due to Patarin's proof with about six rounds of Feistel Network - the attacker ...
162 views

### Question about SHA-2 (and potentially similar hashing algorithms)

I have been educating myself recently about the SHA-2 hashing algorithm, and in the midst of this pursuit, I've encountered a question: This algorithm uses a set of constant hexadecimal values, ...
708 views

### Can curve25519 keys be used with ed25519 keys?

Can curve25519 keys be used with ed25519? I'd prefer to use ed25519, but there isn't a fast java version. For my application, I'd like to use curve25519 until I can get a faster ed25519 for java. ...
51 views

### byte length and offset for k3d3/ed25519 byte[] variables?

I've discovered for myself that java's BigInteger is very slow, so I'm trying to weakly optimize this java implementation of ed25519 which I will fork and post if ...
223 views

### Using KDF output for password validation

I am currently revising an AES data format. I would like to determine whether a provided password/key is incorrect. Previously this was done by validating the HMAC, but this makes it impossible to ...
83 views

### Question Error Correcting Codes

Let $C$ be a code over the finite field $GF(2)$ with generator matrix $G$ and parity matrix $H$. Let $e+C=C'$ be a coset of code $C$. Let $S$ be a non-singular matrix and $H'=H\times S$. Finally, let ...
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### Regain 3DES ECB key, assuming I have both encrypted and decrypted text

Let's assume I've encrypted some text with some 24-byte key using 3DES in ECB mode. Is it possible to regain the key if I have both encrypted and decrypted text? (Excluding bruteforce.)
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### inverse of scalar multiplier in ECC

I am learning to use ECC. i got into situation where i have $Q=abG$, where $G$ is the generator of the finite field formed on EC using a prime $p$ modulus and $a$ , $b$ are random numbers. now suppose ...
294 views

### Breaking a PRNG Scheme

Assume the following scheme for a PRNG generating decimals in [0,100) Given a message and a key, compute tag := HMAC512(message, key). Take the first 5 hexadecimal characters of the tag. If the ...
228 views

### Hash 22 byte secret into 512 bit hash: Full entropy?

Does it make sense to hash a 22 byte secret (which may not have full entropy since it is chosen by the user) into a 512 bit hash (using Keccak-512)? More precisely, will the 512 bit hash have full ...
145 views

### Efficiently computing the neutral element in a ring isomorphic to Z/NZ?

Edited to clarify question So my question is whether anyone knows of an efficient way to compute the neutral element (I'm gonna call it 1, but the operation doesn't have to be multiplication) in an ...
2k views

### How can i predict the next number of a long sequence of seemingly random numbers? [closed]

How can I accurately predict the next random number between 1 and 999, given past results. I have no knowledge of the PRNG or algorithm used. How can I predict the next number of a long sequence of ...
216 views

### TLS: Is Integrity assured when using NULL cipher

In specific implementation we're using TLS 1.0, open ssl 0.9.8 but i'm referring to RFC 5246. For performance reasons, I'm being asked if we can use TLS without encryption. The hope is that the ...
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### What does it mean that $BW_N$ is a permutation over the squares mod N?

Let $BW_N$ be a function such that $BW_N:\mathbb{QR}_{N} \mapsto \mathbb{QR}_{N}$ and let if be defined as follow: $BW_N(x) = x^2 \pmod N$ where $N=pq$ and p and q are primes and $p=q=3 \pmod 4$. I am ...
439 views

### AES mode for file encryption

I'm working on software that should eventually result in a crypto file system similar to encfs. So far, i have a user password that goes through PBKDF2 using ...
119 views

### Hashing entropy generator output with SHA256

I'm using SHA256 to hash the output of an entropy generator to generate random numbers. Is it generally better to treat the output of the entropy generator as single messages and hash each of those ...
158 views

### Rabin code same message sent with different $N$

I use Rabin code with modulus $N$. Now assume that Alice sends me a message $m$ $(1\le m\le N)$ encoded by Rabin code. Unfortunately after Alice sent me the text I lose the information about the ...
143 views

### Are there groups where the computational Diffie Hellman problem is easy but the discrete log problem is hard?

I know that there are elliptic curve groups, used in pairing-based cryptography, where the decisional Diffie Hellman problem (ie. given $g$, $g^a$, $g^b$ and $c$, determine if $c = g^{ab}$ is easy but ...
1k views

### ASCII to same-length ASCII encryption?

I need to encrypt an ASCII string [a-zA-Z0-9:] to an ASCII [a-zA-Z0-9] string of the same length. It doesn't have to be unbreakable, it's sufficient that it won't be readable at the first sight. The ...
62 views

### Looking for alternative key stretching

I am by no means a security expert, but I am curious whether functions that don't produce different outputs when raised to the power of N (without any psuedo-randomness) exist, that are as strong as ...
129 views

### Attack on BB84 algorithm for quantum key exchange?

I have a question which is related to the BB84 cryptosystem. We are not able to send single photons so instead we send $K$ photons at a time all with the same polarization. An enemy can separate one ...
245 views

### Is SHA-256 safe when used in this way?

I am wondering whether an attacker can gain any useful information from having several hashes of an unknown plaintext that differs in relatively few bits. For example, if provided with: ...
198 views

### How can I break this encryption scheme?

Let $p$ be a large public prime. Alice holds a private key $(e_1,d_1) \in Z_{p-1}^*$ such that $e_1 d_1 = 1 \mod {p-1}$. Bob also holds a different private key $(e_2,d_2)$ with the same property. ...
102 views

### Why is this authentication procedure using Rabin crypto not useful?

A friend asked me the following, pointing out that the method is not very useful (my problem is I do not see why it is not good): Consider a person A which chooses $n$ as the public key for the ...
121 views

### Encrypting a TCP connection between two unknown nodes

I'm writing an application for controlling computers from a client. I'd very much like it if the connection is secure and only authenticated clients are allowed access. The workflow will be ...
170 views

### AES: Is it safe to encrypt same cleartext with same key but with million diferent IV?

The encryption mode that I am using is CBC. Algorithm is AES and the key size is 128bit. I will be encrypting a 36 byte string over 1.3 million times with the same key but with a random IV. My ...
272 views

### RSA cipher wrong use

Why is it foolish if you decide to use an RSA cipher to encode some message by first converting each letter of the message to an integer? So for exmaple Space=0, a=1, b=2,... After the conversion I ...
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### How to ensure that a “received value” is not altered?

I have a program (whereby people can download and run on their own computers) that will calculate a couple of unknown values each day. For simplicity sake, let's assume that the calculation is simply ...
212 views

### A specific way for deniable encryption

I read the summary of deniable encryption on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption Then I read a question, by doom123 on security.SE: ...
2k views

### In what way is XXTEA really vulnerable?

I'm looking at using the XXTEA algorithm to encrypt a small amount of data (say, less than 32KB) in the context of a software licensing algorithm. That is, we wish to make it difficult (not ...
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### Implementation of modular arithmetic?

In FIPS 186-3 appendix D.2 "implementation of Modular Arithmetic", they show shortcuts for solving $$B = A \mod m$$ for select Curves. How would you go about determining a valid short cuts for the ...
361 views

### Calculating amount of time for brute forcing ciphertext depending on the size of the key

I am a graphic design student and for my information graphic project I have chosen the topic of the history of encryption and how the security level developed over the centuries. It’s basically an ...
118 views

### Which is better ECDHE with TLS 1.0

I have a webserver which support only TLS 1.0 Which is the better cipher in this group for the best security? ...
255 views

### what's the advantages of identity-based systems over certificate-based ones?

Actually, I'm not familiar to how identity-based and certificate-based systems work, so ,can anyone give me a detail and comprehensive answer to this question? Moreover, in what environments the ...
287 views

### AES-CBC and IV — Encrypting multiple blocks of a file with the same IV?

I have large files which are broken into blocks of 512 KB and uploaded to a server. In my DB I store the IV, and the user knows the security key themselves. When downloading, I use the same IV and ...
152 views

### Is Bitmessage a Mix network?

I've read the Bitmessage whitepaper and I found it rather lacking on the details, but it promises anonymous routing. Can it be considered a variation on mix-networks, where each peer acts as a ...
2k views

### What is the difference between SHA256WITHRSA and SHA256WITHRSAENCRYPTION digest algorithms?

I installed djigzo on my android phone and I want to use it for smime mail. I don't know the difference between choosing SHA256WITHRSA and ...
590 views

### Json AES128: Security against known plaintext attack

I have a system where I am transmitting json messages securely (using for example AES-128), where each message has the same format. For example ...