All Questions

289 views

Definition of a CSPRNG

I am interested in what conditions are necessary and sufficient to define a cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator (CSPRNG). Wikipedia lists two defining characteristics: It ...
157 views

Feasibility of using a base 26 LFSR for cryptography by hand

I have been playing with base 26 LFSRs (i.e. using the alphabet) and noticed that the XOR operation for base 26 is just the tabula recta and so can be done very quickly. This made me wonder whether a ...
116 views

How to develop a public key cryptosystem based on a hard problem?

Recently, I found a function that is performed on a sequence to return another sequence. All known algorithms for finding the input, given the output are of exponential complexity. I want to propose ...
295 views

XOR secret sharing scheme

I was wondering how we can get a secret sharing of $a+b$ from the sharing of secrets $a$ and $b$ themselves by using an XOR secret sharing scheme, where $a_1,...,a_n$ and $b_1,...,b_n$ are the shares ...
84 views

Why does the new encryption scheme proposed by authors stop an adversary from guessing the subspace of the secret key?

In this paper, the authors construct an encryption scheme that is supposed to be resilient to tampering and leaking (as opposed to just leaking). Specifically this scheme: If you look at the ...
172 views

Can you get two unpredictable hashes from the same message with, e.g. SHA1?

I'd like to create a database of questions and answers so that an attacker with access to the database can't obtain either the questions or the answers. If H0 and ...
5k views

Guarding against cryptanalytic breakthroughs: combining multiple hash functions

Assume I want to design a protocol (or data format or similar) including some cryptographic hash, and want it to be as future-proof as possible, i.e. I want to avoid that breakthroughs in cryptography ...
254 views

How does the IV or initial counter increase internally for each block in AES CTR mode?

I am working on Intel AES-NI library and since the AES function is coded using low-level assembly instructions. I could not see how the IV or initial counter increases in CTR mode. In general, how ...
730 views

Estimating bits of entropy

Best ways to estimate average bits of entropy in a byte stream. I know there are different statistical tests out there (NIST, Dieharder, etc), which all do different ways of analyzing entropy. What ...
64 views

Why do authors say conflicting things regarding leak-free stages in their paper?

In this paper the last sentence of the first paragraph in the abstract states: We assume a (necessary) “leak-free” preprocessing stage. But then later on in section 1.4 they say Another ...
417 views

What is the definition of “security beyond the birthday paradox”?

I'm reading a paper about MACs and I would like to be sure about the meaning of a security beyond the birthday paradox. Is there a definition?
63 views

Any functioning system for interactive proof?

My problem is to outsource an array of data and ask the prover to sort the data. I am wonder if there is any working system out there that support interactive proof for the above computation? Or if ...
3k views

Are there any simple and yet secure encryption algorithms?

Being very new to C++ and cryptography, I finally managed to implement a version of the Vinegere algorithm. I would like to try something a bit more complicated. I have looked at AES and DES and ...
106 views

Are there any practical examples of breaking a system using linear attacks?

I've read some papers about linear cryptanalysis. But since I am going to give a lecture about it I am looking for an example of breaking a system using this attack. Is there such an example ...
200 views

How vulnerable is RSA when using it to encode ~1000s of datasets with 500bytes each? How easy can the private key passphrase be hacked?

I know that this is not the best use case for RSA, but for a customer of mine I have to encode user data on the server in a way so that it can be decoded/downloaded by the customer through a "secure" ...
253 views

Constructing secure key exchange protocol

I have $\Pi=(Gen,Enc,Dec)$ and let it be semantically secure public-key encryption scheme. Security parameter is $n$, then the message space of plaintext is always $\lbrace 0, 1 \rbrace^n$. By using ...
102 views

Conditional entropy

Suppose I have a file with random binary strings of the same length in each line. If I'm computing the conditional entropy $H(Y|X)$ where $Y$ is the variable string of fixed length $l$ which is ...
1k views

Store user passwords in database using Java Application

I want to store user's password details in Database. My project is in Java. I want to know the best way of storing passwords and other important information like user data.
686 views

How good is using AES CTR mode with initial counter as 0?

Is it advisable to use AES CTR mode with the counter initialized to 0? How good is it in security terms?
1k views

Are there any Truth Table to Boolean expression converters? [closed]

I am working on Bent functions that are of interest in cryptography. I developed an algorithm that construct such functions. However, I need some tools to calculate boolean expression from the truth ...
80 views

Hi Sec National algorithm

I'm trying to create a remote controller compatible with HiSec algorithm. It's so old that National (now Texas Instruments) discontinued NM95HS01/02 and docs are unavailable. Does anyone have the ...
206 views

Calculating ciphersize of Paillier, SSE and OPE

If I have to encrypt a 32 bit plaintext in each of Paillier, SSE and OPE, how can I make an estimate of the ciphertext sizes respectively in order to reserve the amount of space in a database?
264 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 ...
92 views

Distinguishing joint probability distributions

Assume that we have a probability distribution $P(X,Y)$ for the joint probability of random variables $X$ and $Y$. Let $P(Y, Z)$ be analogous distribution for $Z$ and $Y$. Based on these we can define ...
492 views

Can I make a cipher (ex: Vigenère) harder to break?

The Vigenère cipher can relatively easy be broken when the key size is small compared to the size of the message. One first finds the length of the key, and then uses frequency analysis to actually ...
478 views

Using Chi-Square for Vigenère Cipher

I am writing a program which will use Chi-Square to determine which is the correct keyword for a ciphertext via Vigenère cipher. I came across a website that describes the Chi-Square statistics in a ...
266 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 ...
149 views

Why does Merkle's Puzzle requires Eve quadratic complexity of effort to break the system?

The way Applied cryptography 2ED explains the puzzle is as follows (I paraphrase it): Bob generates 2^20 messages of the form x,y where ...
115 views

Consider a secure modern block cipher like AES/Serpent/Twofish. I hear everyone say that the complexity is $2^{128}$ for a 128 block cipher. But isn't the weak link the actual hashed and salted ...
11k views

Does the SHA hash function always generate a fixed length hash?

I'm using the SHA1/2 family of algorithms for a particular project. I was wondering if all the SHA algorithms return a fixed length hash regardless of the length of the data.
214 views

Are there attacks that break collision resistance but not preimage resistance?

Are there any examples of attacks on hash functions which: break collision resistance and second preimage resistant, or break collision resistance and preimage resistant? I have looked at ...
440 views

Subtracting a point in elliptic curve cryptography?

I've had lots of practice adding points for my crypto class. However I've run into a situation where I need to subtract two points for decryption: ...
121 views

How does SSL secure the initial handshake?

I'm reading the SSL specs, and it seems that the initial handshake has no authenticity protection at all. What is to prevent, say, an attacker from overwriting the "available ciphers" list with one ...
370 views

Some cryptography security questions

I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about cryptography. As we are both no experts, I thought that I could better resolve are dispute here :-). My friend said that when he used public ...
208 views

ID-based key exchange protocol with PFS

The traditional authenticated DH protocol with PFS against active adversaries, ensures that the compromise of both party's long-term private keys after the session is completed will not help the ...
315 views

Can I use SHA1 as license key?

I have recently started looking into creating secure, while not validating against an external server, software product keys. The idea I have had is to create a key consisting of two parts firstly a ...
125 views

Can you explain what the AES paper means by “sharing active S-boxes”?

I am reading the "Biclique cryptanalysis of the full AES" paper. What do they mean by "sharing active S-boxes"? How can this concept can be advantageous to make a bicycle? If there is someone who ...
388 views

What's the difference between the long term key and the session keys?

I'm currently studying secret key cryptography, and I've come across the terms "long-term key" and "session key". What's the difference between these two kinds of keys?
971 views

How do I calculate CRC32 mathematically?

I want to calcuate the CRC32 algorithm using polynomials directly but I don't know how. I found the generating polynomial listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check. This ...
330 views

Tunnels used in md5

I'm reading the paper "Message Freedom in MD4 and MD5 Collisions: Application to APOP" about finding collisions for the MD5 hash algorithm involving the concept of tunnels as described in "Tunnels in ...
872 views

Selective format-compliant JPEG encryption?

I am working towards building a format-compliant encryption system for pictures. The aim of it is to be able to obscure specific areas of a picture (i.e. faces, car license numbers...) while keeping ...
51 views

SHA-512 hash collisions [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Is SHA-512 bijective when hashing a single 512-bit block? Is there any guarantee that there are no collisions for all 512-bit input values for SHA-512 (every 512-bit ...
4k views

Are there any known collisions for the SHA-2 family of hash functions?

Are there any known collisions for the hash functions SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512? By that, I mean are there known values of $a$ and $b$ where $F(a) = F(b)$ and $a ≠ b$?
636 views

If you had to implement the BGN Cryptosystem, how would you do it?

If you had to implement BGN, how would you do it? I'm looking for an implementation of the public-key cryptosystem due to Boneh, Goh, and Nissim (aka BGN), or at least some suggestions on ...
4k views

What is pre-image resistance, and how can the lack thereof be exploited?

What is "preimage resistance", and how can the lack thereof be exploited? How is this different from collision resistance, and are there any known preimage attacks that would be considered feasible?
4k views

Differences Between White-Box Cryptography and Code Obfuscation

I have been reading the question "What is a white-box implementation of a cryptographic algorithm?" and it led to this short article / Q&A which states in question 2: Q2: What is the ...
692 views

Using an RSA private key simultanously as an AES encryption key to generate random numbers?

Currently I'm implementing a PRNG for an embedded system. Using the RFC 4086 I've decided to use the X9.17 - to be more specific the successor X9.31- standard to implement my PRNG. X9.17 uses DES, but ...
650 views

Does unbalancing a feistel cipher always improve security? Does it improve security at all?

So according to Wikipedia unbalanced feistel ciphers provide greater provable security. Specifically, they state: The Thorp shuffle is an extreme case of an unbalanced Feistel cipher in which one ...
Generally, algorithms based on discrete logarithm specify that private keys are chosen as scalars between 1 and the order of the group (denoted $q$ here). For instance IEEE P1363 and FIPS 186-3 both ...