# All Questions

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I'm working on implementing a cryptographic system and I'm trying to understand the Zero Knowledge Password Proof concept. So here's some background: To generate a secret key I am: Doing an ECDH ...
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### What does SSL use? RSA? El-Gamal? Elliptic curves?

I'm not sure what SSL uses to share the symmetric key to both end users, i.e. at the beginning of the communication. Is it RSA? Or El-Gamal? Or something else?
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### How are trapdoor functions developed/found and where can I find existing ones?

Trapdoor functions are a fundamental part of public key cryptography. An example of the most common trapdoor is Prime Factorization, used in cryptosystems such as RSA How are these trapdoor ...
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### Proof of security for RSA signatures

I am new to here, I was having some problems with a problem I am working on: "For each of the following variants of the definition of security for signatures, state whether textbook RSA is secure ...
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### ElGamal: Multiplicative cyclic group and key generation

Here on the ElGamal wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ElGamal_encryption Alice generates an efficient description of a multiplicative cyclic group G, of order q, with generator g. How ...
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### Definition of Textbook RSA

What is the definition of Textbook RSA? What are some of the properties of textbook RSA? How does it differ from other RSAs?
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### How to control the output of a hash function to output to specific data according to similarity?

I do not know if the question lies exactly in that field but i'll give it a try unless rejection. I want to study methods of applying LSH functions to feet in a specific area of digest values. Briefly ...
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### What is the importance of Modular arithmetic in cryptography?

Why do we use modular arithmetic so often in Cryptography?
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### RSA-based authentication and key-agreement protocol

An authentication and key-agreement protocol between devices shall mutually demonstrate their identity, and establish a shared random secret $R$ suitable for securing later communications. To that ...
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### Are there two known strings which have the same MD5 hash value?

Is there an example of two known strings which have the same MD5 hash value (representing a so-called "MD5 collision")?
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### How do I solve this RSA instance for m?

How we can solve this equation and get the value of M? $$8 = M^{13} \mod 33$$ not a computer program, but a mathematical operation.
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### What other one-way functions are used in cryptosystems?

For RSA and El Gamal (and most other public key cryptosystems), one of the key ideas is that factoring and finding discrete logarithms are hard. There are other systems that rely on certain properties ...
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### Demonstrating the insecurity of an RSA signature encoding scheme

I'm working on problem 12.4 from Katz-Lindell. The problem is as follows: Given a public encoding function $\newcommand{\enc}{\operatorname{enc}}\enc$ and a textbook RSA signature scheme where ...
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### Is it safe to store initial counter value for AES-CTR alongside with ciphertext?

The initial counter value can actually be thought of as a sort of IV, which I assume is safe to transmit with the ciphertext, but I really want to be sure that this is indeed safe.
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### Why are the random exponents so much bigger in the Socialist Millionaire protocol versus Diffie-Hellman key exchange?

Section 8, Security considerations, of RFC3526, which defines groups used for Diffie-Hellman has a table recommending some random exponent sizes. In particular, it says: The strength of a key ...
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### Does hash_df use binary or an ASCII hexadecimal representation for numbers to be passed to the hash function?

I'm implementing the HASH_DRBG algorithm. As per NIST-SP800 90 document for HASH DRBG Generation, section 10.4.1 "Derivation Function Using a Hash Function (Hash_df)", the Hash_df algorithm contains ...
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### Why does the padding in MD5 contain the message length?

I understand the need for padding in MD5. But why do we append the message length to the padding? I heard it strengthens the hash but how? Please provide an example if possible and how it applies to ...
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### Cracking plain RSA without private key

I was wondering whether plain RSA encryption can be cracked given: The public key A plaintext of a known cipher text(s). In other words the decrypted message from an encrypted one (but without ...
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### I have a few questions about the random oracle model

1.) Proving the security of a scheme with the ROM takes two steps; first you prove that the sceme is secure in this idealized world where a random oracle exists and then you implement this scheme in ...
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### Are there two-way encryption algorithms that include a work factor?

I recently learned about the hashing algorithm bcrypt, which allows you to specify a "work factor" for the hash which can be incremented to stay ahead of Moore's Law. I understand there are some other ...
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### How many possible input files are there who's length can be stored in 63-bits?

I'm trying to calculate how many possible combinations of files there can be using a signed 64-bit file length, but can't seem to find a formula (or I'm using the wrong keywords). For example, the ...
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### Generalizing the conversion of Diffie-Hellman to El Gamal

How can we generalize the conversion of Diffie-Hellman to El Gamal public-key encryption scheme? The goals is to be eventually able to show that any 2-round key-exchange protocol can be converted into ...
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### How do we find the last two correspondences in an otherwise known even permutation?

A secret even permutation $P$ of the set of non-negative integers less than $n$ is chosen. That might be a Feisltel cipher with a random key. We are given in sequence the $P(x)$ for $x$ from $0$ to ...
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### Is HMAC-DRBG or Hash-DRBG stronger?

Out of the two deterministic random bit generators defined in section 10.1 of NIST SP 800-90A (i.e. based on hash functions), which one is cryptographically stronger? Hash-DRBG (Section 10.1.1) ...
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### Is a using salt important when creating a hash data validator?

I am creating a service that will return an set of objects, which will be used by multiple systems. At the end of the process, one (or more) of the objects will be sent back to our system for ...
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### Are safe primes $p=2^k \pm s$ with $s$ small less recommandable than others as a discrete log modulus?

I take the definition of safe prime as: a prime $p$ is safe when $(p-1)/2$ is prime. Safe primes of appropriate size are the standard choice for the modulus of cryptosystems related to the discrete ...
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### Where is the proof of security of Diffie's cipher?

There is an apparently provably secure cipher that was proposed by Diffie, but enhanced by R.A. Rueppel. The scheme, which was mentioned in Applied Cryptography, works like this: Measure the length ...
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### Is there any serious discussion about using blinding intermediaries in digital currency scenarios?

A digital currency system like Lucre (OpenTransaction) creates a coin by a mint blind signing the output of a hash function, which the payer then unblinds and pairs with the input to the has function. ...
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### How can I make my cipher show the avalanche effect?

I am a beginner in cryptography. I designed an password based encryption-decryption algorithm, which uses a random salt and a password to encrypt a message. I'm using SHA-512 for hashing, matrix ...
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### AES and perfect ciphers

I'm taking a crypto class this semester and after learning the definition of a perfect cipher. I started wondering how this definition applies to AES. Obviously AES isn't a perfect cipher, since the ...