# All Questions

837 views

### Strength of CBC with Ciphertext Stealing

Is CBC with Ciphertext Stealing (CTS) considerably weaker than CBC with padding such as PKCS7? I would imagine the most common situation where CTS is necessary would be due to some size constraint of ...
220 views

### How relevant are hardware implementations of crypto algorithms?

All of the SHA-3 finalists discussed speed and efficiency of a hardware implementation of their algorithms. How relevant are such details? I'm curious about who commercializes hardware that ...
525 views

### Identification of correct plaintext after decryption in Rabin cryptosystem

In the Rabin cryptosystem, decrypting a message can produce four different outputs, of which only one is the correct plaintext. How can one know which of the outputs is the correct one?
215 views

### OMAC/CMAC constant for different block sizes

OMAC/CMAC only specifies constants for 64-bit (0x1B) and 128-bit (0x87) block size. I would like to know how to get constants ...
891 views

### Generate Elliptic Curve Private Key from User Passphrase?

I'd like to generate a private elliptic curve key from user input like pass phrase. Is the best way to do this with a key derivation function like PBKDF2? Is there a better way? Edit (based upon ...
1k views

### Am I insecurely implementing AES in Python? [closed]

My name is Pat, I'm a rising high school senior interested in Comp Sci. I've taken interest in cryptography following the NSA scandal. Since this is the first time I've ever implemented encryption ...
178 views

567 views

### Is it possible to subtract/multiply numbers using homomorphic encryption?

Most of the libraries I've seen allow you to add encrypted numbers. Is it possible to subtract and multiply them?
2k views

### Technical details of attack on Android bitcoin usage of SecureRandom

Reports are surfacing that Android's Java SecureRandom class has issues and isn't totally secure. A specific example of how this issue translates to applications is bitcoin, where reports are stating ...
412 views

### Do companies like CipherCloud really have the option to use homomorphic encryption?

I was reading How is CipherCloud doing homomorphic encryption? and was wondering: Is there a technically feasible way for companies like CipherCloud to use homomorphic encryption (HE) while ...
210 views

### Fractal Merkle Traversal

I am studying Fractal Merkle Tree Traversal algorithm in this book. In the [pag. 54] I don't understand this paragraph: We may determine the number of pebbles returned at these times by ...
2k views

### Pre-image resistant but not 2nd pre-image resistant?

Are there any cryptographic hash functions for which there is a known pre-image attack, or a known second pre-image attack, but not both? The attack doesn't have to be practical - just anything that ...
236 views

### How to use salt when there is only one user

I am encrypting files for storage in an untrusted location, using a custom Java program to do that. There is only one user, but there are many files. I am using AES in CBC mode with PKCS5 padding, and ...
2k views

### RC2, RC4, RC5 key length

While reading the Wiki page on RC4 I noticed that the key size must be in the range of 40–2,048 bits. So should I understand like this, that I can have a key that has length of, lets say 333 bits? ...
424 views

### How does certificate-based encryption solve key revocation problem?

How does certificate-based encryption solve key revocation problem? For example, if a user accidentally reveals its secret key or an attacker compromises it, the user may request revocation of its ...
1k views

### Why does DES use exactly 16 rounds?

Why does DES use exactly 16 rounds and not more or less than 16? What is the significance of using 16 rounds?
135 views

### Verify Messages to Embedded Device

I'm building an embedded device that I plan on distributing. Periodically the device will poll my server to check for updates and commands. I'd like the device to verify that any messages(JSON strings ...
7k views

### How does DES decryption work? Is it the same as encryption or the reverse? [duplicate]

If DES decryption is the same as encryption done in reverse order, then how can the reversed S-Box convert 4 bits into 6 bits?
351 views

### How Were secp*k1 elliptic curve generators chosen?

The Koblitz elliptic curves specified in the SEC2 document https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.secg.org%2Fcollateral%2Fsec2_final.pdf all have the nice feature that the parameters are ...
736 views

### Can AES decryption be used as encryption?

Definition E: AES encryption D: AES decryption x: plain text y: encrypted text k: key In original AES cipher, encryption: y = E(x, k) decryption: x = D(y, k) Then I define the "reverse AES ...
187 views

### What are the security effects of reusing a public RSA key to encrypt large data by blocks? [duplicate]

I'm trying to figure out a way to do public key encryption on a very large piece of data. For this, I of course want one side to do the encrypting but is unable to decrypt the data, and the other ...
215 views

### Does impersonating an SRP server give you enough information for an off-line dictionary attack?

In a comment to an answer I wrote to another question, CodesInChaos wrote that: "Problem with SRP is that an attacker who impersonates a server learns the password hash, enabling offline search." ...
628 views

### How to supply the GCM authentication tag to the OpenSSL command line tools?

I'm using AES-256-GCM for authenticated encryption. In order to decrypt, the ruby OpenSSL library requires an auth_tag parameter (in addition to the key and iv). ...
272 views

### why AKS is so slow in practice? [closed]

This note (http://maths-people.anu.edu.au/~brent/pd/primality4.pdf) states that AKS is not practical. However, it is known that AKS runs in polynomial-time, and I cannot understand where the slowness ...
151 views

### Can an encrypted nonce be used for authentication?

Would a scheme like the following work to allow authentication of a sender: A nonce is appended to data, and the result is encrypted. The encrypted pack is sent to the other party. The sender then ...
216 views

### Is this method of deterministically using CBC secure?

I'm trying to design a deterministic encryption scheme to enable searching in untrusted databases with the smallest possible IV overhead on ciphertexts. I know it's very bad practice but unfortunately ...
215 views

### Alice's forgetful banking

Alice has a bank account number, but has forgotten which bank it is for. There are 4 banks, run by Bob, Carlos, David, and Eve. She could find out by going to all of the banks and asking if they have ...
146 views

### Could using sequential plaintext uncover AES key?

I am encrypting a string in a format like this: ...
2k views

### Learning to encrypt/encryption algorithms [closed]

I am a beginning programmer interested in coding an application of my own to encrypt sensitive files of mine. For example: lists of passwords, bank accounts, Credit Card numbers etc. I was wondering ...
144 views

### Can OTP still be broken if there are several messages being sent with only a slight variation in a password?

If an attacker were able to get a hold of 2 encrypted messages that were both encrypted in a one time pad with a password that were each similar but had one change in the first character, could it ...