# All Questions

99 views

### Does SipHash have 64 bit (second) preimage security?

I was not able to find an explicit statement about the first and second preimage security of SipHash-2-4 or SipHash-4-8 anywhere. I think it should be 64 bits, but I'd feel safer if somebody who has ...
87 views

### Is it a bad idea to use PGP encryption for structured/predictable data?

I'm working on an app and need to encrypt some structured data. The data will be turned into a string form (JSON) before getting encrypted. The data format I'm using will always start with a ...
189 views

### Are there any quantum-resistant symmetric encryption schemes?

It seems that quite a few currently available encryption schemes will possibly be broken by quantum computing. Are there any symmetric encryption schemes that will remain unbroken (either because of ...
700 views

### PGP digital signature vs SHA256 HMAC Comparison

First let me admit that I am not a mathematician or a cryptographer. I am responsible for assisting in making a recommendation on a project that is consolidating payment processes within a company's ...
82 views

### How to select a 'tweak' used in FE1 mode format preserving encryption?

I'm experimenting with this library Botan which includes a module for format preserving encryption based on FE1 mode. The parameters for the Encrypt method are as follows ...
70 views

### Can Winternitz be easily converted to a many-time encryption scheme?

The Winternitz scheme is typically cited as being an OTS scheme. Can it also be used as a one-time encryption scheme? If it can be used as a one-time encryption scheme, then is it possible to easily ...
335 views

### Block cipher does not provide security by itself

What is this statement all about? When I look at a block cipher it seems pretty hard to break it and the mathematics behind insure a good complexity. It may refer to key generation, initialization ...
105 views

### Is it safe to use a secret salted hash of a public id for client to prove ownership of id to a server that knows salt but does not store ids?

I am writing a peering server - the server assigns randomly generated public IDs to users, and I want users to be able to reclaim their ids in the future, but only to be able to claim ids that they ...
92 views

### Definition of the term “key”

I've looked in many places (NIST, text books, online resources) and I cannot find an answer to the definition of the term "key" from a semantic point of view. Is it the "key" to cipher-texts (i.e. ...
133 views

### If a DES key correctly decrypts one message, what's the probability it's the real key?

Suppose an adversary gets a message-ciphertext pair $(M,C)$, where $C=DES_K(M)$. They do an exhaustive key reach to locate the lexicographically first key $T$ for which $C=DES_T(M)$. What's the ...
306 views

### Alice and Bob's crush

Suppose Alice and Bob both want to determine whether the other has a crush on him/her, but they only wish to share the information if the crush is mutual. Is there a cryptographic protocol that makes ...
123 views

### Reducing the keyspace for a brute force attack on a chained 64-bit xor

I have a block of data which I know is encrypted using a chained 64-bit xor (sorry if that makes no sense, I'm not familiar with crypto lingo). I know a little bit about what the plaintext should look ...
117 views

### Discrete logarithm over prime modulo: small input, large exponent, larger prime

I am considering using modular exponentiation as a one-way hash function. More specifically, here is the scenario. 1) Input ($m$): the input messages are small (16-bit) 2) Exponent ($e$): the ...
50 views

### What crypto scheme should I use on embedded m2m system with assymetric uplink/downlink bandwidth?

I am working on implementing info security into custom m2m radiolink communication system, which has some restrictions: MCU based endpoint can transmit to gateway with packets max 16 bytes long, and ...
270 views

### Why are there no OTP ciphers?

We all know the OTP is unbreakable and we all love the OTP (judging by the amount of question on this site). The strength of the OTP is not that it is unable to find a word without the key but you ...
65 views

### Decrypting DES - limited information

I have a list of DES encrypted strings/data, they come in two lengths, 32 chars hex (16 bytes) or - I believe - 64 chars. I know the key, which is 8 ascii chars (I might add that I am the rightful ...
77 views

### FIPS 113 Computer Data Authentication

on the NIST website for Message authentication There is a mention of 2 approved algorithms, i am curious about the first one. the link to FIPS 113, Computer Data Authentication appears to be dead ...
246 views

### Are well designed crypographic codes unbreakable? (NOT ciphers)

Codes are not to be confused with ciphers. It is known that all known ciphers are theoretically breakable except the one-time pad and this isn't what the question is about. Some cryptographic codes ...
516 views

### What are words in a HASH algorithms

From wikipedia: "They differ in the word size; SHA-256 uses 32-bit words where SHA-512 uses 64-bit words." In this context what do they mean with words? is it the same as a 32 bit (or 64 bit) block ...
185 views

### Can I use the output from a DRBG directly as K for AES, or do I need to use a key generator algorithm?

NIST has 3 validated "Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators" (DRBG's) that are based on NIST SP 800-90A: Hash_DRBG (based on hash functions) ...
494 views

### Why aren't zero-knowledge proofs used for authentication in practice?

I read on Wikipedia that zero-knowledge proofs are not used for authentication in practice. Instead (I think) the server is entrusted with seeing a password in plaintext form, which it should then add ...
38 views

I read about zero knowledge proofs. Let's say you want to create an account at a website. You choose a password $p$ and from $p$ you derive deterministically a public & private key pair $(e,d)$ ...
164 views

109 views

### Looking for encryption algorithm not subject to known-plaintext attack with IV reuse

I've encountered an interesting problem where we can basically say the following: We need to encrypt messages, but we have no room to store IVs. We can synthesize IVs; however an attacker would be ...
967 views

### What does ⊕ mean in cryptography?

Can someone please help me with the question below? Explain why 0 ⊕ x ≠ 1 ⊕ x, whatever the value of the bit x. Hence, explain why flipping a bit in the plaintext produces a predictable ...
132 views

### How to attack the Two Time Pad?

I encrypt 2 random keys with the same 'one' time pad. You can get both encrypted keys. You don't know anything besides the size. Is there a way to attack the two time pad in this scenario? And what ...
113 views

### How do revocation certificates work in PGP?

I've already read how to build and upload them, but I'm wondering how revocation certificates work, what informations they hold and so on. Suppose my private key is compromised, but I have a ...
86 views

66 views

### Are more S boxes more secure in a SP-Network?

The classic DES uses 8 different fixed S boxes. If computer memory was not an issue, would say 800 different S boxes be more secure? I'm thinking of a SP-network that would only run on a server like ...
139 views

### Is the Salsa20/ChaCha20 keystream generation one-way?

Is it possible to recompute the Salsa20 or ChaCha20 key in a realistic time if the keystream and the nonce are given to an attacker? Or is the keystream generation one-way, like a cryptographic has ...
209 views

### Is this variant of SRP for peer-to-peer authentication practical?

I'm interested in using a modified form of SRP as a peer-to-peer authentication method. Since neither side is acting as a host, one of the primary design goals for SRP (that the client doesn't need ...
77 views

### Rabin-Williams, blinding and size of Integer r?

I was reading the paper Breaking the Rabin-Williams digital signature system implementation in the Crypto++ library. The library uses blinding, but it was not enough to stop key recovery. But my ...
71 views

### Adding a Random component to CBC MAC in order to enlarge the tag space

CBC MAC that is using AES as the underlying block cipher, has tag space of 2^128. If we add a random single block, concatenating it with the tag, and encrypt it again in AES CBC mode, with additional ...
127 views

### Paillier cryptosystem preserve ordering of sums for two integer sequences

According to Paillier cryptosystem the product of two ciphertexts will decrypt to the sum of their corresponding plaintexts. I have two separate integer sequences X and Y that have same number of ...
152 views

### Permuted vectors

Consider we have two vectors $v_1, v_2$ of size $n$, and each vector contains $n$ elements. We permute the vectors as: $\pi (k_1,v_1), \pi (k_2,v_2)$. Where $\pi (k_i,v)$ denotes a permutation of a ...
148 views

### Can cycle finding techniques reduce the memory usage of the MitM attack against 2DES and 3DES?

A 2DES like cipher $c=E^{(2)}_{K_2}(E^{(1)}_{K_1}(p))$ where both halves have an $n$ bit key is vulnerable to a meet-in-the-middle attack. Meet-in-the-middle using a big table Create a table ...
494 views

### Password length versus hash length?

If a system hashes passwords with a 256-bit long hash, are passwords (which are not necessarily alphanumeric, can be any value per byte (0-255)) longer than 32 bytes useless under the context in which ...