# All Questions

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### What is the impact of different modes on pseudo randomness of AES?

AES in CBC-MAC mode is proven to be good PRF . But is there any study done on other modes ? how good is ECB mode as PRF ?
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### Speed up modular exponentation with fixed base and modulus

Can someone explain, how $a^x \mod N$ can be speeded up, when $a$ and $N$ are known constants? How big is the gain and what resources are needed? ...
380 views

### OFB or CTR mode without an IV

I'm reading the SSL specs here. The interesting thing seems to be that RC4 is not re-keyed with a new IV for each message. The stream cipher state is simply carried over to the next record. Why is ...
368 views

### What does the linear assumption over bilinear groups mean?

In the abstract of "Cryptography with Tamperable and Leaky Memory", at the end of the 3rd paragraph, the authors say: In both schemes we rely on the linear assumption over bilinear groups. What ...
361 views

### What kind of machine can generate 100-400 digits prime number? RSA

The 64 bit machine's biggest number can be 2^63 (9,223,372,036,854,775,807). So what kind of a monstrous machine can generate 100-400 digits prime number? I probably don't understand something, so ...
505 views

### Is scrypt a hashing function, encryption, or PBKDF?

I have installed a python implementation of scrypt and noticed it has several functions, both an encrypt and hash function. Yet Wikipedia lists it as being used for PBKDF instead of PBKDF2. Is scrypt ...
592 views

### Openssl & RSA : how many public exponents are possible?

I would like to know if it is possible to set the public exponent we want with "OpenSSL RSA" or if it is really limited to 2 possible exponents: 3 65537 If yes, why ?
379 views

### Please punch holes in this authentication scheme

Folks, I am undertaking a crypto course in Uni. Our professor asked us to try and design some authentication schemes which are resistant to active attacks. This was just a in class exercise to get us ...
128 views

### Is it dangerous to use plaintext as IV in CBC?

Is it dangerous to use plaintext as IV in CBC? For example: I want to encrypt $p1$, $p2$ with CBC. However I use $p2$ as the IV for CBC purposes. What would be the risk of not using a IV based on ...
242 views

### How to renew keys for a statically-encrypted database

Preamble Before I ask this question, please accept that I fully understand that 'rolling your own' is never a good idea, and that I am a relative n00b. The only reason I am doing this the way I am is ...
568 views

### Identification of correct plaintext after decryption in Rabin cryptosystem

In the Rabin cryptosystem, decrypting a message can produce four different outputs, of which only one is the correct plaintext. How can one know which of the outputs is the correct one?
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### Alice's forgetful banking

Alice has a bank account number, but has forgotten which bank it is for. There are 4 banks, run by Bob, Carlos, David, and Eve. She could find out by going to all of the banks and asking if they have ...
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 ...
348 views

### Encrypting and MACing different data with same key

It's a well-known best practice to not use one key to both encrypt and MAC data. In my application, there are instances where I MAC a piece of data without having encrypted it first. Do I still need a ...
218 views

### No IV for one off symmetric file encryption

My question is (hopefully, for somebody) a simple one; but my project is holding as I'm not sure. I read on SO that generating encryption keys without an IV is a bad idea, so is using a constant IV ...
237 views

### What is the fastest elliptic curve operation f(P) in affine coordinates such that f^n(P)=P only if n is large?

I'm working with the affine representations of points of the Secp256k1 elliptic curve (from Bitcoin). I've read many papers that show that computing some functions, like $f(P)=3P$ can be computed ...
547 views

### What is a fair exchange scheme?

The Wikipedia entry Fair exchange has only two lines, and the only paper I can find describing such a protocol is extremely complicated. Is this a new field in cryptology or can someone give an ...
141 views

### Does knowledge of original file size provide a cryptographic weakness?

I'm encrypting files using an AES-256 CBC cipher and an SHA-256 HMAC every 64KB in the file. Since AES CBC needs an amount of input bytes to be divisible by 16, I use PKCS#7 padding to bring the ...
147 views

### AES Message Authentication Vulnerability

My securities instructor recently posed this question to the class and I am bending my brain in half trying to figure it out. Suppose $y_1 = AES(K, x_1)$ and $y_2 = AES(K,x_2)$, and suppose you ...
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519 views

### Modifications of CBC-MAC

I'm preparing myself to exam, but I have a lot of troubles with rigorous proofs. This post is very long, but this is because I remind here 2 long definitions. At the beginning I want to remind the ...
564 views

### Is there another resource for Carter-Wegman-style message authentication?

I'm wondering if there are other resources that cover Carter-Wegman style message authentication, besides the sources themselves. Is there an online text or a book that covers their ideas? I'd ...
309 views

### Why does .NET's ECB mode implementation append a constant block to my ciphertext?

Consider the following code and output: ...
537 views

### PRNG taking advantage of very large seed

Can anyone suggest a good (CS)PRNG algorithm that takes advantage of having a very large (ideally arbitrarily large) seed? I'd like to use several kilobytes, perhaps several hundred kilobytes, of ...
682 views

### Can we trust digital signatures?

Consider that Alice wants to send a digitally signed message to Bob. Mallory might be able to publish his public key under Alice's name and then impersonate Alice to send a message with an apparently ...
161 views

### Does it make sense to use slow hashes in digital signatures?

For storing passwords, it seems that the use of intentionally slow hash functions (like PBKDF2 and bcrypt) is now recommended. This is because most hashes are designed to be fast, which also makes ...
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Sorry if this is a noob questions, but I finally figured out how to implement the Tiny Encryption Algorithm in C++. My question is what to do about padding the key and the plaintext? I know that ...
2k views

### How to get the keyword from a keyword cipher?

I was given a ciphertext and now I am trying to break it via looking for the keyword. This is a keyword cipher. So: PlainEnglish: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ If ...
1k views

### How to sign a message using RSA?

Assuming I already have a D, P, Q, etc of an RSA key: How do I now sign a message? If it matters – the message is around 100 bits. I don't know much about cryptography, but I can get these numbers ...
10k views

### How to use RCON In Key Expansion of 128 Bit Advanced Encryption Standard

I have a question about RCON here is my illustration... this is the 128 bit key.. ...
2k views

### Symmetric vs. Asymmetric cryptographic approaches to data security

I know the basic differences between Symmetric vs. Asymmetric cryptography, but I'd love to know more details: Exactly why is the asymmetric approach slower than the symmetric? Why does it make ...
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Suppose you need to authenticate yourself to a program with the password - but the program's source code is public, the program doesn't have access to any private information and all your ...
322 views

### Realize a MAC using a Pseudo-random function?

Given a pseudo-random function and assuming that we do not have any other tools, How can we construct a MAC? I believe this can be done. Would like to know if there is more than one way of doing ...
3k views

### Secure way to transfer data over NFC?

I am currently writing a payment system to accept payment details from an NFC enabled smartphone (BlackBerry 9900) to a Windows client (C#.NET) I am currently having two issues relating to security: ...
334 views

### Is EKE attackable by a brute-force password search?

So I'm trying to properly implement the EKE protocol and I'm using C# with the Windows CNG and ECDH key exchange. I need to use this because it's FIPS certified and all that jazz. So what I'm ...
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### Stream Ciphers and cycling questions

For all PRNGs (including CSPRNGs) lets say there is a sequence x, y, z, then when the PRNG cycles back to x, then the sequence following it will be exactly the same as before. Is this true for all ...
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### Practical benefit of using a KDF?

I see that KDFs should be used in systems that rely on PSKs, but what practical benefit does it provide? For instance, suppose the system relies on a shared secret for AES encryption and decryption. ...
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### Is it secure to use order preserving encryption in practice?

When I read papers, I often see the comments, "order-preserving encryption is deterministic and it is not IND-CPA secure", or in general "it is not secure enough to be implemented in practice". So I ...