# All Questions

664 views

### ANSI X9.9 Cryptography Standards

I'm trying to create a ISO8583 Rev93 message. What is the standard way of generating MAC key in ANSI X9.9 DES-CBC encryption algorithm is used to encrypt the ...
671 views

### How should I store passwords that need to be available in plain text?

Suppose I need to store login information for a third-party website for a few users, how would I go about doing it? Since I am logging into a third party website, I need the password in plain-text, ...
432 views

### Why isn't the alternating step generator used more often?

According to the Wikipedia entry for the Alternating Step pseudorandom number generator, there is no public cryptanalysis for this device since it was invented back in 1987 by C.G. Gunther. I have ...
621 views

### Where do I securely store the key for a system where the source is visible?

I have a customer with an Access database (ugh!) in which credit cards are stored in plaintext (yikes!), so amongst other changes I'm doing in the app, I'm applying some encryption in there. I've ...
4k views

### How does the index of coincidence work in the Kasiki test?

I'm starting to learn about cryptanalysis and I am having a bit of difficulty understanding the Kasiski test's index of coincidence. I have a book (Cryptography Theory And Practice by Douglas Stinson) ...
392 views

### How exactly are GPG keys mathematically related, and prime numbers inside of GPG general

Before anyone suggest it, I've yet to pick up "Applied Cryptography" I'm planning on picking it up the next time I visit amazon. I know that the keys are somehow mathematically related, and I know ...
789 views

### How secure is the Bitcoin protocol?

Are there any evidence (other than not being cracked so far) that the Bitcoin protocol is secure? "How secure" is it? (I realize that this might not qualify as a meaningful question - feel free to ...
499 views

### iSeries (AS/400) Database File: password encryption

I am helping with a project in which an old software system on an iSeries is having a brand new .NET UI applied to it. It's going well... except... In order to allow users to login and maintain ...
236 views

### Is the logic for how the enigma machine worked documented somewhere?

I know that there is a formula to calculate the result of any input but is the logic of how the machine actually worked documented? I have seen schematics for the circuitry and even a how to make ...
519 views

### Mapping points between elliptic curves and the integers

My primary question is: Is there an easy way to create a bijective mapping from points on an elliptic curve E (over a finite field) to the integers (desirably to $\mathbb{Z}^*_q$ where $q$ is the ...
826 views

### Is HTTPS secure if someone snoops the initial handshake?

Let's say I'm on an open wireless network that's being actively sniffed and I connect to an HTTPS site. Even though my subsequent traffic is encrypted, couldn't the sniffer use the data from the ...
793 views

### Is SHA-512 bijective when hashing a single 512-bit block?

It's been said that CRC-64 is bijective for a 64-bit block. It the corresponding statement true for SHA-2?
2k views

### Reverse engineering a hash?

I understand this may not be the best place to ask a question like this, but I believe that this community may be the best/only place I can ask such a question. I have inputs and outputs from an ...
844 views

### Is it okay to use a hash of a timestamp as the IV for AES?

The message format includes a datetime field in the clear. Is it okay to also use this field (or some hash thereof) as the initialization vector? In this case, CBC is the mode being used.
7k views

### How does asymmetric encryption work?

I've always been interested in encryption but I have never found a good explanation (beginners explanation) of how encryption with public key and decryption with private key works. How does it ...
164 views

### ID-Secret Scheme

I have an ID-Secret scheme and I'd like to hear if there are any vulnerabilities present. Party 1 and Party 2 hold some credentials, an ID and a Secret. Party 1 Creates this message: ...
1k views

### What alphanumeric string length can be used to guarantee no hash collisions from CRC-64?

If I'm hashing alphanumeric strings (chars in the set 0-9, a-...
631 views

### Can an Enigma-style cipher of sufficient complexity be considered secure in today's world?

Regarding the German Enigma machines, if I recall correctly, the reason they were defeated was because the Allies were able to generate a massive database of possible rotor settings, and because the ...
821 views

### Properties of PRNG / Hashes

There are a lot of quite elaborate PRNG's out there (e.g. Mersenne Twister et.al.), and they have some important properties, especially when it comes to crypto applications. So, I was wondering how ...
2k views

### Is there any opensource white-box implementation of AES or DES?

I googled it and give me no result. There is a binary executable of white-box implementation of DES (scroll down), but no source code provided. The same page also links various papers about ...
3k 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 ...
423 views

### Security of N bit HMAC

Lets say that I am using 128 bit HMAC. How many operations are needed to find "non secure" message. Is birthday attack possible?
642 views

### How can my application make sure the right symmetric key is used for decryption?

I am developing an Encryption/Decryption Utility using Adobe AIR. I have chosen the AES algorithm and currently use the as3crypto library for this. My query is in ...
586 views

### About Cryptography in a Character Language

Suppose I had a message in Chinese (or another non-phonetic language) and I wanted to encipher it. Some of the simplest encryptions in English are substitution ciphers, but such ciphers don't seem ...
1k views

### Unpredictability of X.509 serial numbers

About X.509 certificates serial numbers the RFC 5280 says: The serial number MUST be a positive integer assigned by the CA to each certificate. It MUST be unique for each certificate issued by a ...
144 views

### Are more complex algorithms easier to break with timing attacks?

Is there a point where increasing the complexity of an encryption algorithm will make it easier to break using a timing attack? Or is there no connection here at all?
440 views

### XSL on serpent and rijndael - which is most affected?

So I've often looked at serpent and thought it was a very strong contender in AES. Not so long ago I was looking for evidence as to why it didn't beat rijndael. So far, the closest I've got answering ...
795 views

### Design properties of the Rijndael finite field

So we've already had a question on replacing the Rijndael S-Box. My question is - can we use a different finite field other than the one given by $x^8 + x^4 + x^3 + x + 1$ in $GF(2^8)$. In other ...
182 views

### Hermitian curves introductory references

Could you give me some reference to start on Hermitian Curves. Some papers or textbooks would be perfect, and please mention if it's math inclined or comp.sci. inclined. I've only seen hermitian ...
396 views

I understand my group theory (allegedly), so I can make partial sense of The Hidden Subgroup problem: Given a group $G$, a subgroup $H \leq G$, and a set $X$, we say a function $f : G \Rightarrow ... 3answers 494 views ### UMAC: to what extent is it in use today? Inspired slightly by the Encrypt-then-MAC question. The most obvious message authentication code is probably HMAC or RFC 2104 which is basically a hash of the input, an xor with a key... you get the ... 1answer 469 views ### Does unbalancing a feistel cipher always improve security? Does it improve security at all? So according to Wikipedia unbalanced feistel ciphers provide greater provable security. Specifically, they state: The Thorp shuffle is an extreme case of an unbalanced Feistel cipher in which one ... 1answer 163 views ### Are there security issues with discrete logarithm keys not being uniformly distributed? Generally, algorithms based on discrete logarithm specify that private keys are chosen as scalars between 1 and the order of the group (denoted$q$here). For instance IEEE P1363 and FIPS 186-3 both ... 1answer 1k views ### What is a white-box implementation of a cryptographic algorithm? What is a white-box implementation? Does a white-box implementation have specific properties? 1answer 508 views ### Change in probability of collision when removing digits from MD5 hexadecimal hash values I am aware that MD5 has a known collision vulnerability and should not be relied upon when uniqueness is required, but in the environment I am working on I only have access to MD5 hash function. ... 3answers 965 views ### How robust is discrete logarithm in$GF(2^n)\$?

"Normal" discrete logarithm based cryptosystems (DSA, Diffie-Hellman, ElGamal) work in the finite field of integers modulo a big prime p. However, there exist other finite fields out there, in ...
9k views

### Should I use ECB or CBC encryption mode for my block cipher?

Can someone tell me which mode out of ECB and CBC is better, and how to decide which mode to use? Are there any other modes which are better?
727 views

### Are any of the major asymmetric ciphers distinguishable (EG, RSA, ECC)?

Related to "Is it possible to derive the encryption method from encrypted text?". Given ciphertexts generated by any of the major asymmetric ciphers (RSA, ElGamal, ECC, etc..) can these ciphertexts ...
10k views

### Should we MAC-then-encrypt or encrypt-then-MAC?

Most of the time, when some data must be encrypted, it must also be protected with a MAC, because encryption protects only against passive attackers. There are some nifty encryption modes which ...
469 views

### Are there asymmetric cryptographic algorithms that are not based on integer factorization and discrete logarithm?

In the computer security class (in which cryptography is a big chapter) that I took, I remembered the professor said about current asymmetric cryptography algorithms are based on integer factorization ...
253 views

### Tactics available to help prove security of a new system?

I believe that the accepted tactic to "prove" a system as secure is to allow the crypto-community to review it and if no vulnerabilities are found over a long period of time (5 or 6 years), then a new ...
577 views

### Should I use the first or last bits from a SHA-256 hash?

I have the need for a hexadecimal token that is smaller than the normal length of the hexadecimal representation of a SHA-256 hash. Should I take the first bits or the last bits? Which of them ...
272 views

### Is it possible to create an asymmetric cryptosystem where the private keys are not easily verifiable as such?

Plaintext that consists of an RSA key is easily recognizable as such, because it satisfies certain mathematical properties, in particular (See the answer for Why can an encrypted private key be brute ...
422 views

### Why is there an enormous difference between SAT solvers?

SAT solvers are very important in algebraic attacks, for example walksat and minisat. However, when solving the benchmark problems available here there is an enormous performance difference between ...
284 views

### Reduction from signatures to encryption?

Is it possible to construct an (asymmetric) encryption scheme from a signature scheme? If the signature scheme is deterministic and allows existential forgery (e.g. RSA), then the answer is yes ...
922 views

### Encrypted text length in AES

I have created an application that will be able to read any file and encrypt it using AES Encryption. For efficiency, I am reading a block of data, encrypting it and so on. So for decrypting, I just ...
332 views

### Can one efficiently iterate valid bcrypt hash output values?

bcrypt is an intentionally slow hash algorithm. In my last protocol idea, I wanted to use it to expand a password and then only transfer the bcrypt-hashed password. An efficient attack on this would ...
4k views

### Is it possible to derive the encryption method from encrypted text?

Is it possible to identify the encryption method, or at least rule out some of them, by looking at the encrypted text? For example, if you have 3 encrypted strings where the first 10 characters are ...
704 views

### Why does PBKDF2 xor the iterations of the hash function together?

The definition of PBKDF2 states that I obtain a derived key* by calling a pseudorandom function a bunch of times recursively: ...
424 views

### Is key size the only barrier to the adoption of the McEliece cryptosystem, or is it considered broken/potentially vulnerable?

A recent paper showed that the McEliece cryptosystem is not, unlike RSA and other cryptosystems, weakened as drastically by quantum computing because strong Fourier sampling cannot solve the hidden ...

15 30 50 per page