# All Questions

1k views

### Difference between Hash function and Random Oracle

Going through the blog post, I was under the impression that any cryptographic scheme which makes use of hash function is said to be using random oracle. But, I have come across one construction of ...
133 views

### Automated testing of cipher security for import/export compliance [closed]

What do we know about systems that automatically test and grade cipher security. The application in mind would be for checking for compliance with import/export regulations. I imagine a system that ...
46 views

### Can one deduce the symmetric key size used to encrypt a given a piece of ciphertext?

Assume an attacker captures a piece of ciphertext encrypted with a symmetric key. He knows all the details of the algorithm used to encrypt except for the size of the key used in this case. Can he ...
90 views

### Integrity protection in wireless sensor networks [closed]

I have done a lab about wireless sensor nodes and got in touch with encryption for the very first time. There are some questions on my sheet, especially on integrity protection (the attacker wants to ...
151 views

### Using hash of plaintext as nonce in NaCl secretbox- bad idea?

I need a nonce to encrypt my stuff using NaCl secretbox. I will be transmitting the nonce along with the ciphertext, which I have been told is OK to do. It occurs to me that one could simply use the ...
467 views

### Where are the ChaCha20 test vectors/examples?

I see in the Salsa20 specification there are test examples throughout the document to help an implementer make sure every function works as designed. Consequently the whole algorithm would work ...
455 views

### Why is EdDSA collision-resilient with SHA-512?

In the Bernstein et al. paper about EdDSA, the authors claim EdDSA is resilient against collisions (i.e. it can still be secure even if the hash function used isn't collision-resistant), drawing on a ...
89 views

### What is the difficulty of DLP in GF(P^Q) with a subgroup with a prime order of L

Given a finite field GF(P^Q), having a subgroup with a prime order of L (P,Q,L are all primes), how difficult is it to find the discrete log, is it related to P and Q or is it related to L, or to ...
341 views

### Isn't the security of EC curve 25519 126 bits?

The security of the EC25519 is given as 128 bits, but since the order of the group is 252 bits shouldn't the security be 126 bits? Given as half the magnitude of the underlying field, since DLP ...
87 views

### Is changing $H(R\mathbin{\Vert}A\mathbin{\Vert}M)$ to $H(R\mathbin{\Vert}A\mathbin{\Vert}H(M))$ in EdDSA secure?

EdDSA calculates $s=(r+H(R\mathbin{\Vert}A\mathbin{\Vert}M)\cdot a)\bmod\ell$ and $r=H(h\mathbin{\Vert}M)$, with $H$ being the hash function (SHA2/512); $B$ being the generator; $A$ being the public ...
101 views

### Effect of CFB IV reuse

If an Initialization Vector (IV) is reused (under the same encryption key) in Cipher Feedback Mode (CFB), what is the effect upon security? I know there is some negative effect upon security, but I ...
245 views

### Difference between Pseudorandom Function vs randomly chosen function

I am currently going through a course in cryptography. In this, I stumbled upon Pseudorandom Functions. I got a little idea of Pseudorandom Generators which map an input string (key) to an extended ...
155 views

### private keys for multiple devices [closed]

I have an architecture where: a user can have multiple devices (phones) the server needs to broadcast the payload to all devices through the same channel (basically, all devices listen and receive ...
224 views

### How to implement the Salsa20 hash function?

I am currently implementing Salsa20 from the specification as an exercise in learning and self-flagellation. I have Sections 1-7 passing the test examples provided. I am now stuck on Section 8, The ...
201 views

### Is there a client-side program to cryptography a HTML page and decode if correct password is writen? [closed]

I want to know if there is an easy way to do this: create a complete HTML page cryptography the text content (image is not important) ask user some password check the password with a cryptographed ...
289 views

### Strength of RSA with OAEP

In our current system we use an encryption solution based on RSA with OAEP padding. Key size is optional but default 2048. What is the general strength of RSA with OAEP? Are there know attacks that ...
89 views

### Unique assignment of X.509 certificate to each client

I'm trying to implement a short scale electronic voting application in a domain comprised of no more than 100 clients. System administrator is able to create new election instances and each client is ...
36 views

### Question about key verification

I am studying for network security exam. And in the slide about Key Management, under a heading Key Verification I see this: Key Verification Almost all cryptographic algorithms have some weak keys ...
149 views

### How much (home PC) CPU time is required to generate a prime number of a given size?

How much CPU time is required on a typical home computer to generate a prime number of size 100 bit, 200 bit , 512 bit and 1024 bit using given random bits of the respective sizes? Please note that ...
328 views

### Remove padding (CBC) from decrypted text [closed]

I have a bit problem with padding. Everything goes fine when I encrypt the text BUT when I decrypt I see some extra characters. Sometime's one character sometimes more and I dont know how to remove ...
98 views

### Possible to use an accumulator to “license” or restrict the qty of certificates being used?

Suppose in a future version of x509 PKI, it is possible to limit the quantity of certificates being used, what would that look like? Here is a concept that won't work in the real world, but ...
248 views

### Problem with implementing DES in python

i'm implementing DES in python and i've stumbled upon a problem i can't really find the problem, after debugging it i narrowed it down to this function, can anyone tell me if i'm implementing the DES ...
151 views

### Which block cipher mode does the experts use? [closed]

I want to know which "block cipher mode of operation" does the experts use? I don't want to use ECB or CBC because add padding and padding mess up my code. So which one does the experts use. /Thanks ...
502 views

### How secure is file header encryption for large files?

I'm having trouble location information about whether or not encrypting a file's header is good enough. The files in question are media files that range in size from 500mb to 4GB. If I had no ...
175 views

### Montgomery Algorithm

I'm trying to undestand how it works and how to implement the algo described in this paper. The paper shows a methods to compute a modular multiplication where it is used multiplier with a resolution ...
194 views

### subgroup of quadratic residue

if a number is said to be a subgroup of a quadratic residue of Z∗p, can I affirm that it is a generator of a cyclic group ? ie, say i am looking for a number which is an element of order q in Z*p, ...
153 views

### Discrepancy with reported key size for EDE ciphers in Qualys SSL Labs

The following two cipher suites were reported by Qualys SSL Labs as being 112-bit: SSL_CK_DES_192_EDE3_CBC_WITH_MD5 TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA However, all other references I can find say that ...
724 views

### What is the algorithm behind PasswordDeriveBytes?

Microsoft has created an implementation of PBKDF1 in the PasswordDeriveBytes class. It can however generate more bytes than PBKDF1, which is limited to the number ...
130 views

### Are there any known inverse hash lookups for the zero string?

Just wondering, are there any known inverse hashes / hash lookups in common hashes (md5, sha1, sha2, etc.) for the zero string hash value? (i.e. bytes 0x00 00 00 00 00 ...) Or more specifically, for ...
151 views

### Entropy in relation to computer security [closed]

I am going over some lecture notes and my lecturer is off sick, so not sure where to turn. There is this equation that I cannot understand as it's given with a couple of examples. I was hoping ...
441 views

### Key derivation of public key without knowledge of private key

I'm looking for a convenient way to share a set of public keys across multiple services, while preserving privacy by preventing these services from tying the identity of these public key sets together ...
401 views

130 views

### Loss of data due to encryption

Could any kind of encryption method (AES, etc.) lead to data loss like in lossy compression? I'm interested if data (lossy compressed, lossless compressed, uncompressed) that is encrypted and ...
108 views

### Interested in learning cryptography [duplicate]

I'm interested in learning cryptography outside the university(studying civil engineering). I was always interested in computer sciences and programing and in mathematics. I always try to program ...
287 views

### Share encrypted files without giving master key

Imagine I have four files I want to encrypt. I have master key, and from that master key I derive four keys, one for each file: ...
517 views

### Encryption for a short packet size

I have an 8051 microcontroller with a radio that can send packets with up to 32 bytes and I want to have the messages encrypted. It is a sensor network so I really only want to send one packet per ...
249 views

### Difference between statistical PRNG and cryptographic PRNG? [duplicate]

What's the difference between a statistical pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) and a cryptographic-strength PRNG? I've seen a lot of PRNGs that are proposed for statistical uses -- e.g., ...
171 views

### NTRU key generation

I've been experimenting with an NTRU open-source C implementation here I've noticed something (potentionally) strange with a certain set of params: NTRU_EES1087EP2 (defined here). When generating ...
413 views

### How many bits of entropy would I get from 300 coin tosses? [closed]

Bonus question, what is the formula to calculate this?