# All Questions

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### What problems with “random” data would cause this result from Ent?

I'm playing around with a novel kind of source of "random" data and Ent is currently giving me results like this: Entropy = 7.977080 bits per byte. Optimum compression would reduce the size of this ...
14 views

### Can XTS + checksum be used for authenticated encryption?

Is it possible to use XTS+a checksum for authenticated encryption? Specifically, it seems like a good $n$ bit checksum applied before encryption should ensure that any change to the ciphertext ...
18 views

### Is it okay to use Threefish-512 in ECB mode with Poly1305 MAC to protect some AES keys?

A person has some independent AES-GCM-SIV keys they need to protect as part of a hypothetical protocol or product, where it is publically known that it is in fact AES-GCM-SIV keys that are being ...
31 views

### Product of Vigenère ciphers is not a Vigenère cipher with length of LCM

I have always thought that using two Vigenère ciphers leads to another Vigenère cipher with key length of LCM (least common multiple) of the two previous Vigenère ciphers. But I have stumbled upon ...
191 views

### What is the difference between PBE and symmetric key encryption?

What is the difference between PBE (password based encryption) and symmetric-key algorithms? My understanding is that symmetric-key algorithms like AES and Twofish are used in PBE. Hence PBE is just ...
43 views

### Scalability of homomorphic tallying

Whenever I look at online voting schemes, the idea of homomorphic encryption being a key concept, specially in the form of homomorphic tallying, appears to be universally accepted. The accepted answer ...
62 views

### Calculation of the avalanche effect coefficient

Given a strict avalanche criterion matrix/dependence matrix for a hash function,how do I calculate the avalanche coefficient for it. I want to calculate a single parameter(value) which represents the ...
69 views

### How does the split mask countermeasure work on AES?

I am trying to understand the split mask countermeasure which is a masking method to avoid side channel attacks. Let's first describe the principle and then try to apply it to AES. I found this paper ...
73 views

### Is the Discrete logarithm problem suitable for this pairing scheme?

Let $Ans$ be the product of two pairings : $e(g,h)^{k} \times e(g,h)^{r}=Ans$ If everybody knows only $[g,h,e(g,h)^{k}]$ but $[r,Ans]$ is not known. In the discrete logarithm problem, the user knows ...
77 views

### How to make the range of modulo $p$ to $[-\frac{p}{2};\frac{p}{2}]$?

I am using NTL (A Library for doing Number Theory) to implement a FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption) scheme. In general, the range of modulo p is $[-\frac{p}{2};\frac{p}{2}]$ in FHE scheme. However, ...
51 views

### Is webkey a reasonably secure authentication system?

I just created Webkey in the last couple days. This should allow any website to do single-password auth with a much higher level of auth security and convenience for users (single password with ...
45 views

### What are fixed points and length extension attack in hash functions?

I was recently reading about hash functions, and I came across fixed points (one or more fixed points, interested in both) and length extensions, but I didn't exactly understand how these work. If ...
1k views

### Is there something wrong with my decryption using key=9, mod 26?

I am new to cryptography and have started looking at some basic encryption. I have the following question to answer: Decrypt the the following encrypted quotation using ...
58 views

### How to prove a symmetric encryption scheme provides perfect secrecy?

I learned in class that in order to achieve perfect secrecy, the source of the plaintext $\mathcal{P}$ needs to be independent from the source of the encryption key $\mathcal{K}$. We also learned that ...
101 views

### How do I create a secure encryption scheme using addition?

You have a 4 number long PIN code with each number ranging from 0 to 9 which you wish to encrypt. You are then given a random 4 digit number ranging from 0 to 9999, which when added to the original ...
124 views

### How to reverse engineer a cryptography algorithm if some input-output pair is known.

I am trying to reverse engineer an unknown encryption algorithm. By this, I mean I dont know what kind of algorithm is used to encrypt the words. But I know some input-output pairs. From this point ...
68 views

### Trusted Third Party Cryptanalysis Labs?

There's no doubt that third party cryptanalysis is an essential part of the crypto ecosystem. It's how we know that there's some degree of practical "goodness" to a new algorithm or protocol. Unlike ...
1k views

### Does composing multiple substitution ciphers improve security?

Will using two substitution ciphers one after the another be more secure than using single substitution cipher?
99 views

### How does SSL work on the browser

I recently bought an SSL certificate from a website and was able to make it work on my Apache server. As far as I know, it uses asymmetric keys and the private key is stored on the server while the ...
35 views

### How SAM modules secure transactions?

As you know SAM Modules are used mainly in the electronic payment industry. Due to the low security of key storing in general storage devices or MCUs, Manufacturers used SAM modules for secure storing ...
16 views

### Decoding the Playfair cipher with a crib [duplicate]

I have a Playfair cipher text and I know a portion of the text (one world). How can I decode the cipher from here? Thanks.
324 views

### For RSA keys, is the safety of a given key-length different for signing vs encryption?

I'm wondering if considerations of key-length are different when thinking about signing vs encryption. If for some reason, it was safter to use smaller keys for signing that would be interesting.
44 views

### What is the advantage of Pseudosquare?

Pseudosquares ,which are not square but Jacobi symbol are still 1, are used in some cryptographic algorithm. What is the advantage of them over the exact squares? If we used squares instead of ...
38 views

### The state in RC4-128

I'd ask what's the state in rc4 algorithm and its size depend on what? If the plaintext 8x3 bits and key of 4x3 bits What the size of s in this case?
30 views

### Best Attack Against HFE cryptosystem

I am looking for the best know attack against HFE cryptosystem. Reading this paper DEGREE OF REGULARITY FOR HFE I found the next claim However, Faugere and Joux demonstrated that we can solve and ...
260 views

### Non-iterative cryptographic hash functions

Consider the following cryptographic hash function $H$ which maps a message $m$ of variable size to $b$ bits: $$H:\{0,1\}^{*} \mapsto \{0,1\}^b$$ $$y = H(m) = SPRP(IV||m||padding)\mid_{b}$$ , where: ...
186 views

### What is this “finite field cryptography”?

See RFC 5931 § 2.2.1 which talks about "finite field cryptography" as opposed to elliptic curve cryptography and it looks like it is describing the Diffie-Hellman protocol. But Diffie-Hellman is not a ...
43 views

### Check if a number is Carmichael number efficiently

I am trying to implement Modified Miller-Rabin Algorithm by Shyam Narayanan (https://math.mit.edu/research/highschool/primes/materials/2014/Narayanan.pdf). The algorithm demands to check if a number ...
154 views

### How to use the Extended Euclidean algorithm to invert a finite field element?

I was doing some practice on cryptography (I'm new to this topic) and was wondering what the following question even means or what it is asking me to find. I do know how to do Extended Euclidean ...
38 views

### How would an attacker perform an exhaustive key search on a block cipher using ECB mode?

Do you always assume from Kerchoff's principle, that the attacker has access to everything but the decryption key? That is, am I to assume that to perform an exhaustive key search, the attacker has a ...
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### Password-based encryption with small typos allowed

I'm trying to write some software to encrypt and decrypt some messages with a password. I am trying to implement it using this post: How can I securely convert a "string" password to a key used in ...
20 views

### Partial-Message Collisions on Iterated Hash Functions

In Cryptography Engineering by Ferguson et al it says the following is a problem with iterated hash functions: Because hashing $m$ and $m'$ leads to the same value, $h(m||X) = h(m'||X)$... for all ...