# All Questions

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### How good is the RandomPool generator in Crypto++ library?

How good is the RandomPool generator in Crypto++ library? I never heard of it before… I wonder if there is a Fortuna C implementation that I could use in an Objective-C project. Also: How secure is ...
271 views

### Security of Pohlig-Hellman exponentation cipher?

I am looking into implementing Pohlig-Hellman exponentation cipher and I would like to know how secure that algorithm is? I am guessing it's security relates greatly to the prime number used in it. ...
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### How would using only one s-box affect security of Blowfish?

Schneier says: Fewer and smaller S-boxes. It may be possible to reduce the number of S-boxes from four to one. Additionally, it may be possible to overlap entries in a single S-box: entry 0 ...
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### On the Definition of a PRG and a CSPRG

I've been looking at the definition of a PRG, here. This is a broader notion than a cryptographically secure PRG ("CSPRG"), which is described here. I am realizing that I am very confused by this ...
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### Bicliques for permutations

So I'm trying to understand the complexity of the biclique attack on Grostl and I have some questions: 1) The paper introduces sliced bicliques where on Grostl one constructs a biclique of dimension ...
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### Why does a one-time-pad key have to be at least as long as a message? [closed]

I am studying one time pad and find it hard to understand. What happens if the key is one bit or 100 bits shorter than the message?
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### Key change and key derivation

there are two ways for key change: Key update and re-keying. Which of this methods use KDF (Key Derivation Function) for getting new keys.
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### Are there groups where the computational Diffie Hellman problem is easy but the discrete log problem is hard?

I know that there are elliptic curve groups, used in pairing-based cryptography, where the decisional Diffie Hellman problem (ie. given $g$, $g^a$, $g^b$ and $c$, determine if $c = g^{ab}$ is easy but ...
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### Ideal system for an encryption scheme

What is the ideal system for an encryption scheme? For a pseudorandom permutation the ideal one is a random permutation, for a pseudorandom function the ideal one is a random function. For an ...
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### Can you prove the existance of a PRG $G$ s.t. for each even $k$: $G(k)=G(k+1)$?

In one of the exercises in [KL] Book I need to tell whether an encryption scheme is secure under an eavesdropper of only one message. Given a PRG $G: \{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}^{n+1}$. The ...
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### How can I break this encryption scheme?

Let $p$ be a large public prime. Alice holds a private key $(e_1,d_1) \in Z_{p-1}^*$ such that $e_1 d_1 = 1 \mod {p-1}$. Bob also holds a different private key $(e_2,d_2)$ with the same property. ...
455 views

### Hill cipher, unknown letter value

I've been struggling on this problem for a while now : the Hill cipher is well-known to be vulnerable to known-plaintext attack due to its linearity. Given a key matrix $K$ of size $n\times n$, one ...
629 views

### Is the number of creatable torrents limited?

Currently, a magnet link containing a 40-digits long SHA-hash value, is assigned to every torrent which is created. Therefore, this hash should be unique to identify a torrent and send the right bytes ...
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### Brute force attack expected running time

I am a bit confused about the expected running times of brute force attacks on different cryptosystems. So let's assume a key size of $2^n$ bits. Symmetric key cryptography: $E(brute)$ = ...
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### Generating bilinear pairing parameters - running time of finding member of p-torsion group

Update: Question completely rephrased. I want to create the parameters for a bilinear pairing (the Tate pairing in this case). In case you're interested I'm following this thesis, specifically the ...
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### How long would the 100 Year Cryptography Project have secured its data had it been started 100 years ago?

The goal of the Tahoe-LAFS 100 Year Cryptography project is to "enhance Tahoe-LAFS's cryptographic system so that Tahoe shipped today/next year might remain safe from cryptographic attacks for a 100 ...
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### Hill cipher is not perfectly secure

I am on cryptography course and there is a homework question to show that Hill cipher doesn't have perfect security. So assume we have an cryptosystem $(P,C,K)$, where $P = C = \mathbb Z_{26}^N$ and ...
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### Concerns about using a hash to determine if specific input data has already been encrypted

A system is used to securely store account numbers. When an account number is added to the system it is securely encrypted and stored in a database along with the IV and a reference to the encrypted ...
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### Initialize a PRNG with a password

Let's assume that we have a secure PRNG. Is it "safe" to initialize it with password, or seed based on a password like SHA256(password)? If yes, is it "safe" to generate an RSA or DSA key from it? ...
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### Is digest=HASH(HASH(a)+HASH(b)) equivalent to publishing two digests?

Is combining digests (created using a hash function) using arithmetic addition, and then hashing and publishing the result, less secure than publishing the set of digests? Does the answer change if ...
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### c# Correct Triple Des Block Encryption Usage

I found the below code online, but in its original state, the encryption was not using any padding (Padding.None), and was encrypting in blocks of 8. I wasn't able to get this code to properly encrypt ...
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### What is sent on the initial communication with Kerberos?

When a user wants to communicate with another user (let's say Alice and Bob), what is sent over the network during the initial communication? Alice uses her Kerberos client and enters her password ...
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### Why do we append the length of the message in SHA-1 pre-processing?

As we know, SHA-1 is irreversible, so why do we append the length of the message to the preimage?
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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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### Random numbers for Rabin-Miller primality tests

I've implemented a Rabin-Miller primality test fuction following Wikipedia and the book Applied Cryptography. Now I'm using it for generating primes with a string seed. The book suggests the following ...
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### Importance of block size in CBC mode

Why is it necessary to use a sufficiently long block size when implementing a CBC block cipher with a truly random initialization vector? In ECB mode it's easy to get information about the message if ...
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### Why are the constants so simple in Keccak?

Keccak, the construction selected for SHA-3 is very interesting. It seems unlike other primitives and has chosen very simple constants. (Keccak talk PDF) The initial values of the state in Keccak is ...
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### Perfect Secrecy -> One Time Semantic Security -> Secure PRG

I think I have some sense of what Perfect Security means, and even Semantic Security, but I am struggling with randomness, so I'm going to ask a question about CSPRG's (Cryptographically Secure PRG's) ...
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### How do you find the inverse degree of a hash function?

I am trying to learn cryptanalysis on the Keccak hash function. One of the papers on zero sum distinguishers talks about Keccak having inverse degree of 3. I am unable to figure this out: how do you ...