# All Questions

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### A fair peer-based coin-flipping protocol?

I found this question on the game programming site and was intrigued. I came up with an answer off the top of my head but I'm no cryptanalyst so it is probably not water-tight. This is how my idea ...
1k views

### Why not use CTR with a randomized IV?

I'm currently reading the chapter of Cryptographic Engineering (Ferguson, Schneier, Kohno 2010) about block cipher modes of operation. They have recommended CBC with random IV instead of CTR due to ...
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### What is the key strength reduction encrypting only 160 bits of data using RSA1024 for signatures?

I am attempting to determine the strength of an incorrectly implemented 1024 bit RSA signature scheme. The weakness in the implementation is that the padding data lacks random numbers. As a result, ...
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### Linear Cryptanalysis

What is the principle of linear cryptanalysis, as applied to a block cipher ? For instance, this page gives the rough outline of differential cryptanalysis.
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### Is it possible to weaken a bitcoin private key by “using” it elsewhere?

What are the increased possibilities (if any) of being able to crack a private key given the following: The associated bitcoin (ECDSA Secp256k1-based) public key is known. The private key has been ...
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### Is multiplicative secret sharing secure?

I suggested mulitiplicative secret sharing in an answer to another question, but noted that I wasn't sure if it was even secure and was hoping someone would comment on the security. Since no one did, ...
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Assume RSA with a public modulus $N$ of $n$ bits, a small odd public exponent $e$, plaintext $M$ a random non-negative integer less than $2^m$ for some integer parameter $m$, with $M\mapsto C=M^e\bmod ... 0answers 417 views ### How can I find two strings$m_1$and$m_2$, knowing that I know$m_1 \oplus m_2$? [duplicate] Possible Duplicate: How does one attack a two-time pad (i.e. one time pad with key reuse)? I recently started to follow the cryptography class of Dan Boneh on coursera.org and the first ... 3answers 1k views ### Encryption with “constant” initialization vector considered harmful I try to get the full reasoning behind the above statement. First, after reading articles here and at wikipedia i understand that using an IV only once is good practice. For stream ciphers not doing ... 1answer 2k views ### How large should a Diffie-Hellman p be? In a Diffie-Hellman exchange, the parties need to agree on a prime p and a base g in order to continue. Assuming some ... 3answers 307 views ### Designing a key expander out of ciphers Is it possible to compose or combine$n$ciphers ($cipher_0, cipher_1, ... cipher_n$) in such a way that they generate$n$ciphertexts from the same key,$k$, and that recovering the key,$k$, from ... 1answer 698 views ### AES timing attacks I'm just interested in cryptography, so please don't expect me to be an expert. ;) I recently read about AES cache timing attacks and found it very interesting. I read the article Cache-timing attacks ... 3answers 335 views ### Is there a public key semantically secure cryptosystem for which one can prove in zero knowledge the equivalence of two plaintexts? If Alice encrypts two messages$a$and$b$, such that$x=E(a)$,$y=E(b)$. Can Alice prove (without revealing$a$,$b$or the private key) that$a = b$? Obviously the proof must not be too long and it ... 1answer 176 views ### Why are there$ signs in my passwd file?

I am trying to get access to my eReader and I managed to get the passwd file. ...
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First, just to make sure I understand "salting" correctly: You randomly generate a string to append to the password before hashing it, so as to increase its length and make precomputed tables much ...
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### Webapp password storage: Salting a hash vs multiple hashes?

For security's sake, of course it's blasphemous to store passwords in plain-text; using a hash function and then doing a re-hash and comparison is considered much better. But, if bad guys steal your ...
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### ECDSA: How to retrieve a non-random k

I have a question regarding the random $k$ number of ECDSA encryption. As far as I know, it is possible to retrieve $k$ (and thus the private key) from two signed messages if both used the same $k$. ...
351 views

### ECDSA vs RSA: Performance on Android platform and surprising results

For our privacy-preserving protocol, an encrypted channel is established. In order to protect our system from man-in-the-middle attacks, signature-based approach is used. After we've implemented it ...
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### ElGamal in private set intersection: how to handle negative numbers?

I am trying to implement the Efficient Robust Private Set Intersection using Additive ElGamal. For this, from the client side, my inputs are $C = \{1, 2\}$. So, the polynomial is $(x-1)(x-2)$ which ...
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### Attacking 2DES efficiently

Meet in the middle on 2DES uses $2^{56}$ memory. Given the fact that the attacker has only $2^{45}$ memory. How can the attacker adjust the attack so even with this memory limit, it will still be more ...
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### Parallel-resistant proof-of-work scheme?

I am looking for a proof-of-work scheme which cannot be effectively parallelized. For example, in hashcash (and by extension bitcoin) you have some collision-resistant hash function $f()$, a target ...
1k views

### 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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### 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 ...
311 views

### Timing attack on modular exponentiation

It is known that computing $a^x \bmod N$ takes $O(|x| + \mathrm{pop}(x))$ multiplications modulo $N$, where $|x|$ is the number of bits of $x$ and $\mathrm{pop}(x)$ is the number of $1$ bits (Hamming ...
435 views

### Theoretical pi-based stream cipher

Let's pretend that all digits of pi are known and arbitrarily long sequences of digits are trivial to get. Further, some mathematician proves that there are no patterns in pi. We could create a stream ...
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### Non-cryptographic hash function as MAC for stream ciphers

I understand that for a stream cipher to be useful, there must be a way to verify that the message was not tampered with (bits were flipped by an attacker). So, instead of using some cryptographic ...
2k views

### Advantage of AES(Rijndael) over Twofish and Serpent

I'm trying to figure out a suitable encryption technique and after reading a bit, I figured the current AES 128-bit encryption is suitable for what I'm trying to do. However, this is more due to the ...
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### CPA Secure Chosen plaintext scheme

The example for IND-CPA secure schemes given is generally: for a random r, Enc_k(m) =(r|| E_k(r) XOR m) where E is a PRF But does the role of r and k really matter--i.e. isn't this equally ...
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### Are there secure stream ciphers that cannot be parallelized?

Are there any stream ciphers (or a deterministic random number generators, that should work as well I guess?) that cannot be parallelized? So for example if I seed it with a specific value, and then ...
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### What happens to the entropy of a password when you hash it?

For example, if the entropy of a password is 30 bits, what is the entropy of the password when you hash it with MD5?
3k views

### How does one calculate the scalar multiplication on elliptic curves?

I found this example online: In the elliptic curve group defined by $$y^2 = x^3 + 9x + 17 \quad \text{over } \mathbb{F}_{23},$$ what is the discrete logarithm $k$ of $Q = (4,5)$ to the base ...
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### Security considerations for partially shared password databases

Programs like KeyPass and 1Password store password database files encrypted by a single password. If someone knows the protecting password ("Vault Key"), they can read the entire database ("secrets"). ...
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### Can I pre-define the points in Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm

With Shamir's secret sharing is it possible to pre-define the points returned by the algorithm? For simplicity if I have (k, n) where k=2, and n=4, and I have the points X,Y,Z, and Q. Can I create ...
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### Does the XML Encryption flaw affect SSL/TLS?

A "practical attack against XML's cipher block chaining (CBC) mode" has been demonstrated: XML Encryption Flaw Leaves Web Services Vulnerable. Does this weakness of CBC-mode which is used here also ...
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### How to calculate complexity of ElGamal cryptosystem?

How to calculate time and space complexity of ElGamal encryption and decryption as there are two exponentiation operation during encryption and one during decryption? Here is my code for encryption: ...
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### What curve and key length to use in ECDSA with BouncyCastle

I'm developing a client/server system in Java which is not interacting with third party software, so I don't have to worry about compatibility. At a certain point, I need the client and server to ...
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### Attack of an RSA signature scheme using PKCS#1 v1.5 encryption padding

My best interpretation of this question is that Java's crypto API has been subverted to perform RSA signature using PKCS#1 v1.5 encryption padding. Assume the signature $S$ of a message $M$ is ...
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### How to calculate the maximum output size for data encrypted with a RSA Private Key?

I have an an encryption algorithm I am working with that looks like this: prv_key_enc(sha1_hash(data)) Where, the RSA parameters are: RSA/ECB/PKCS1Padding 1024 ...
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### Weaker Notion of Target Collision Resistance

I'm reading the paper “Collision-Resistant Hashing? Towards Making UOWHFs Practical” which states: While it might be easy to find a collision $M,M'$ in $F_K$ by making both $M,M'$ depend on $K$ ...
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### Dependence on Keyed Hash Function

I'm reading the paper “Collision-Resistant Hashing? Towards Making UOWHFs Practical” which states: With an ACR hash function $F$ the key $K$ is announced and the adversary wins if she manages to ...
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I'm performing ElGamal encryption algorithm and using the additive homomorphic property so the product of two ciphertexts is the encryption of the sum of the plaintexts. The problem is that I need to ...
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### P = NP and current cryptographic systems

I've recently heard some people claiming that if the fact that P = NP is proven, most (all?) the current cryptographic algorithm considered secure like RSA will be unusable in secure systems. My ...
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### IV Security Clarification

After doing lots of reading on SO and other websites relating to AES cryptography, I am trying to understand the security issues surrounding IV's. There seems to be a lot of confusion and ...
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### risk of attacker decrypting RSA ciphertext without public or private key

As I describe in my previous question I am trying to decide if it's worth it for me to use the Offline Private Key Protocol in creating some long term private archives, instead of just going with a ...
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### How large should a Diffie-Hellman p be if the messages are encrypted?

How large should the prime $p$ and generator $g$ values be in a Diffie-Hellman handshake if the messages are encrypted. If the key that encrypted the Diffie-Hellman messages becomes compromised, ...
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### using Post-quantum asymmetric ciphers instead of RSA

We can't trust RSA to encrypt our Emails so what is best post-quantum cryptography system as alternative for RSA which provide good security and don't be breakable? because McEliece cryptosystem looks ...
1k views

### Is it safer to encrypt twice with RSA?

I wonder if it's safer to encrypt a plain text with RSA twice than it is to encrypt it just once. It should make a big difference if you assume that the two private keys are different, and that the ...
356 views

### Why is a non fixed-length encryption scheme worse than a fixed-length one?

I have the following definition (highlights by me): An (efficient secret-key) encryption scheme $(Gen,Enc,Dec)$, where $Gen$ and $Enc$ are PPT algorithms and $Dec$ is a Deterministic Polytime ...
### What exactly is addition modulo $2^{32}$ in cryptography?
EDIT: I've been confusing this the whole time. What I've been wanting to say this whole time is addition modulo $2^{32}$ not addition modulo 32 as the question originally said. Thanks for pointing ...