# All Questions

317 views

### randomly generated key reused with XOR

If I have a long randomly generated key (k), XORed with a message (m), but since the message is longer than the key, there is a chance of reusing the keystream with the same message, but the key is ...
331 views

### What are the pros and cons of deterministic site-specific password generation from a master pass?

I've been reading up a bit on deterministic password generators. All the ones I can find basically do something like this: Pick a master username and a master passphrase. The username could be your ...
134 views

### Do per connection random keys solve the stream cipher key repetition issue?

Edits: added then removed additional cases that on reflection seem like a bad idea. In fact, this whole line of thought seems like a complicated way to get a bigger nonce, which might be better ...
258 views

### Factoring large numbers

I am trying to factor few integers that are each between 115 and 135 digits long. I was wondering if anyone knew of any efficient methods or any programs that I could use to find the two primes $p$ ...
2k views

### What does it mean if second half of 8-char string encrypted in 3DES is always identical?

In the recent Adobe passwords leak, presumably encrypted in 3DES ECB, second half of all 8-character passwords is identical: ioxG6CatHBw== Source: http://pastebin.com/iDTFARwq (guesses based on ...
373 views

### RSA 896 vs 1024 vs 2048 in Javascript?

I am currently working on a secure messaging website and I had been using RSA 2048 for encryption, decryption and signing of messages but I found it to be EXTREMELY LAGGY so i've moved to 1024. I did ...
420 views

### Can ECB mode really leak some characters?

In an Ars Technica article about Adobe's use of 3DES in ECB mode, there's a paragraph The passwords, according to password expert Steve "Sc00bz" Thomas, are encrypted in a mode known as ECB. That ...
96 views

### secret sharing of product of 2 numbers

Does evaluating the products of shares $a_jb_j$ give a secret sharing of $ab$? I think it's a no, but I am not sure on how to prove it.
112 views

### What is the difference between exhaustive search and factorization in relationship to determining a key?

It seems to me an exhaustive search would simply try to use all the possible bit combinations of a key, while factorization is some mathematical formula for determining the key? When discussing the ...
851 views

### Are there any Javascript CSPRNGs? [closed]

I'm writing some software that requires the use of a CSPRNG with javascript for use in the browser and I'm wondering what libraries are available. Crypto-js doesn't seem to have a CSPRNG I can ...
2k views

### HMAC vs Encrypted Hash

What is best to use (for message integrity) between… AES(Data) + HMAC(Data) AES(Data + HMAC(Data)) AES(Data + Hash(Data)) …and why?
200 views

### Why does CBC-MAC need prefix-free inputs to be a good PRF?

In the FFX spec, there is a note about using CMAC as the round function. Security notes. The round function F is constructed in such a way that the set of inputs on which the CBC-MAC is ...
490 views

### Serpent cipher : Osvik S-Boxes confusion and test vectors

I'm having hard time with the implementation of the S-Boxes by Osvik found in this paper: Speeding up Serpent. At the end of the paper, all the s-boxes are given and then, I just implement them. ...
109 views

### Question about the definition of a perfect cipher

I need to prove that the following encryption scheme is a perfect cipher: Let $p$ be a prime. The secret key is a pair $(a,b)$ sampled uniformly at random from $\mathbb{Z}_p^* \times \mathbb{Z}_p$. ...
160 views

### Public Key encryption /Assymetric encryption

For a start, I 've got a question regarding the Public key encryption. I know the public key encryption overcomes the Key distribution issue with the symmetric encryption and that in the case of ...
155 views

### How would you encrypt-then-MAC when using pen-and-paper and a Caesar cipher?

I'll probably get shot for asking this, but I've got some kids (aged 8-10) in my neighbourhood that I've been showing/teaching the simple pen-and-paper Caesar cipher and they're successfully playing ...
859 views

### How is digital signature different from a message authentication code (MAC)?

I know the definitions of both but can't specifically tell how they are different and if one is better than the other. Please help.
343 views

### In Elgamal, the generator g is always quadratic non-residue modulo p where p is a safe prime and inverse of g can be also generator?

In Elgamal, the generator $g$ is always quadratic non-residue modulo $p$, where $p$ is a safe prime and the inverse of $g$ can also be generator? Can I prove it? I can't come up with it at all.
80 views

### Hash of multiset of values, which lets me compute the hash of the union

Cryptographic hash functions normally take as input a bitstring. I am looking for a hash function that takes as input a finite multiset of values. In other words, given $S \subset \{0,1\}^*$, I want ...
2k views

### Does ssl_rsa_with_rc4_128_md5 have known weaknesses?

My bank's website uses HTTPS with the cipher suite ssl_rsa_with_rc4_128_md5. What are the known weaknesses of this suite? Do they have a practical impact for ...
2k views

### How to use HMAC-SHA1, HMAC-SHA2 in conjunction with AES

I understand how to compute HMAC-SHA1, HMAC-SHA2 etcetera. Please explain why/how is the resulting HMAC value is used in conjunction with AES for encryption/decryption and signing/verifying. In ...
2k views

### If I have the unencrypted text and the encrypted text, can I calculate the key?

If I have the unencrypted text and the encrypted text, can I calculate the key? It seems logical based on my limited knowledge of encryption that I should be able to... but it also seems like too ...
324 views

### How to calculate entropy of a combined key

I know how to calculate the entropy of a key that relates to its selection process. For example if the key space is $1000$, entropy of a randomly chosen key is $1000$. Suppose now you have two keys ...
305 views

### Cryptanalysis and weaknesses of SEED cipher

I've discovered that a client has SEED enabled in their SSL ciphers, and would like to know a bit more about it from a security perspective. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention any flaws, yet I've ...
876 views

### How are IVs used in association with RSA Encryption?

How are IVs used in association with RSA Encryption? Can someone explain why we use them in this RSA context?
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458 views

### Why are the initial states of hashes functions (like SHA-1) often non-zero?

There is already a question asking "Why initialize SHA1 with specific buffer?" and my question follows on from this: Why are the initial states of hash functions often non-zero? For most, I have ...
365 views

### openSSL ECDH private key size

When you are using a named curve like P-256 in openSSL, is there any standard key size for ECDH private key keys? If you look at the ec_key.c file in the openSSL ...
381 views

### Definition of a CSPRNG

I am interested in what conditions are necessary and sufficient to define a cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator (CSPRNG). Wikipedia lists two defining characteristics: It ...
3k views

### Are there any Truth Table to Boolean expression converters? [closed]

I am working on Bent functions that are of interest in cryptography. I developed an algorithm that construct such functions. However, I need some tools to calculate boolean expression from the truth ...
310 views

### Why does Merkle's Puzzle requires Eve quadratic complexity of effort to break the system?

The way Applied cryptography 2ED explains the puzzle is as follows (I paraphrase it): Bob generates 2^20 messages of the form x,y where ...
266 views

### What is the limit of plaintext required to break the Vigenère encryption?

A theoretical question about the Vigenère cipher: Without any knowledge about the key (not even it's length) can we tell how much known or chosen plaintext is needed for the adversary to completely ...
144 views

### How does SSL secure the initial handshake?

I'm reading the SSL specs, and it seems that the initial handshake has no authenticity protection at all. What is to prevent, say, an attacker from overwriting the "available ciphers" list with one ...
761 views

### What's the difference between the long term key and the session keys?

I'm currently studying secret key cryptography, and I've come across the terms "long-term key" and "session key". What's the difference between these two kinds of keys?
246 views

### Are there attacks that break collision resistance but not preimage resistance?

Are there any examples of attacks on hash functions which: break collision resistance and second preimage resistant, or break collision resistance and preimage resistant? I have looked at ...

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