All Questions

278 views

Why is time-lapse cryptography not popular?

Time-Lapse Cryptography has been introduced by Michael Rabin and Christopher Thorpe in the paper “Time-Lapse Cryptography”, but it does not seems to be popular. It is a really good paper with an great ...
270 views

Blinding twice in RSA

I understand that if you have a message $m$, you can blind it by selecting a random $r$ and then multiplying $r^e\times m \pmod{n}$ Someone else then signs it with $d$, raising to the power of $d$: ...
94 views

Can I use the cipher text ouput of only one DES rotation as plaintext to check validity?

I have made a python code for one DES rotation. Can I use the resulting cipher text as a plain text for the same rotation with the same key? I think the answer is no, I can't do so. But I need to be ...
112 views

Difference between computational and statistical indistinguishabilities

What is the difference between the two notions of computational and statistical indistinguishability?
76 views

Dependence on Keyed Hash Function

I'm reading the paper “Collision-Resistant Hashing? Towards Making UOWHFs Practical” which states: With an ACR hash function $F$ the key $K$ is announced and the adversary wins if she manages to ...
62 views

order between adversaries and type of resources given

We have a game $G0$ for which an adversary $A$ has access to a certain amount of ressources. Let us suppose that the maximum advantage for the adversary to win this game is $Adv_{G0}$. If we modify ...
892 views

Hash function based on pseudorandom functions and security

Are there hash functions that make use of pseudorandom functions. Precisely, I'm looking for a specification of a hash function based on PRF (and based on the security of such a primitive).
269 views

A situation where security by obscurity might be the best solution - or am I wrong?

Imagine the following situation. There is an application for a microcontroller-driven system. The profits are made from manufacturing and selling the device itself. However, it is expected, that the ...
181 views

Acceptable assumptions when proving security

Considering the output of a cryptographic primitive, like an encryption scheme (CBC, ...), a hash function or even the output of any schemes based on number theoretic assumptions, is it reasonable ...
527 views

Secure use-cases of block cipher with 64-bit block size

In what cases can we use a weak block cipher like DES ? More precisely, Are there specific situation in which a weaken block cipher can still be used, for instance for certain types of plaintext ?
204 views

Have these compositions of block ciphers the same security?

I'm interested by the compositions of the block cipher DES, instantiated with independent keys $k_1$, $k_2$ and $k_3$. Are these 3 compositions equivalent in terms of security? ...
1k views

Good entropy source for generating openssl keys

I need to generate a CA (4096-bit RSA) and server keys for openvpn and I want them to be "top quality". Here is my plan: gather entropy from multiple sources (saving individual files): FreeBSD ...
578 views

Is there a practical zero-knowledge proof for this special discrete log equation?

We have a multiplicative cyclic group $G$ with generators $g$ and $h$, as in El Gamal. Assume $G$ is a subgroup of $(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z})^*$. There are two parties, Alice and Bob: Alice knows: ...
903 views

Can you help me understand the Common Modulus Attack in a Lucas Group?

I'm trying to decrypt a message that is encrypted using a LUC encryption scheme and running into roadblocks. I know that with RSA if Alice and Bob use the same public modulus but different encryption ...
63 views

Oblivious Transfer where neither party learns the index of the message

In a traditional Oblivious Transfer setting, the sender has a list $(x_1, x_2, ... , x_n) \in G$ where $G$ is the chosen group. The receiver has $b \in \mathbb{N}$, such that engaging in the protocol ...
161 views

Stream vs Block cipher: Synchronising and the receiver

I am learning cryptography at school and I was wondering: How are the blocks/streams after decryption synchronized at the receiver to form one long meaningful message? Am I right by saying that ...
357 views

Why do these Python XTEA implementations require different deltas?

I once needed to an XTEA snippet to from C++ to Python and it did not work properly. I then found a function on ActiveState.com and noticed that it looks almost exactly like mine, with one exception - ...
449 views

RSA Encryption and Signature - Weak Padding

Assume that I have an plaintext $m$ and it is padded with $randompad||00||m$ and then it is encrypted with RSA and a public encryption key so we get the encrypted $Sm$. Then to assure its integrity ...
115 views

What parts of number theory does the RSA algorithm use?

It is said that the RSA algorithm uses number theory. What parts of number theory does it use? I know it uses modular arithmetic and Euler's totient theorem and function. Is that all?
208 views

Solve a Modular Exponentiation

It might be common, but if we had to solve an equation like this $m=s^{e}$ mod $n$ where $m,e,n$ are known. How can we find $s$. What optimisations could be applied? And what would the complexity of ...
291 views

Single Party Encryption, Multi Party Decryption

I am looking for an adequate protocol for public key decryption, which would allow $n$ parties to jointly decrypt a cipher text. The usage scenario for such a protocol would be a mixnet that wouldn't ...
593 views

Forgery Attack Against RSA Digital Signature

I have been reading about attacks against RSA Digital Signature in a book The attacker chooses the signature first and then computes the message. As a consequence, he cannot control the ...
191 views

How does a backdoor in the RNG enable an attacker to break encryption protocols?

I'm wondering how a backdoor in a random-number generator (as rumored the NSA have placed), actually compromises the security of things like VPNs or TSL/SSL. What I understand is that, if such a ...
126 views

With Encrypt-then-MAC, and flexible protocols, do I need to authenticate the authentication?

Sorry, the question is not easy to state (or wasn't for me, anyhow). So I'm writing a very flexible format for security. It allows for full choice of cipher, key size, and so on, along with key ...
198 views

Outsourcing arbitrary computations securely

Consider the following scheme. Alice wants Bob to make some computations for her, but she doesn't want to reveal the data on which he's going to do it. So, she encrypts the data, sends them to Bob, he ...
119 views

What's the alternative should PKI collapse?

Premises - please check it and critique if necessary: If factoring the products of large numbers suddenly becomes simple, PKI goes up in smoke. Is this correct? If it is correct, it seems to me ...
3k views

With OpenSSL and ECDHE, how to show the actual curve being used?

Using openssl s_client -host myserver.net -port 443 I can see the cipher negotiated is indeed using ECDHE for session key ...
1k views

How many possible input files are there who's length can be stored in 63-bits?

I'm trying to calculate how many possible combinations of files there can be using a signed 64-bit file length, but can't seem to find a formula (or I'm using the wrong keywords). For example, the ...
416 views

ECB weakness and its exploitation

Lets say that I have a server which encrypts information at the server side using ECB mode with the blocksize of 16. If the server appends data that I control with a secret and sends back the ...
240 views

How can uniformity of hash functions (e.g. SHA-256) be proved?

In reading about the Bitcoin protocol I noticed how much its proofs-of-work apparently depend on uniformity of the SHA-256 hash function. And so presumably do many other applications. How do ...
150 views

Is there a name for this 'enhanced' caeser shift and if so, is it trivial to break?

This cipher shifts the letter that it will shift to, after each shift... I used to play with this when I was a kid. I was thinking about it recently and realized that it wasn't as simple as I ...
549 views

Using IV buffer after altered inside a Rijndael CBC Encryption/Decryption process as IV for next message?

When sending a block to be decrypted or encrypted, with RijndaelCBC, we input the data to decrypt/encrypt and an IV for syncing and to prevent identical outputs for identical inputs. This question is ...
120 views

Calculate entropy of key derived from PBKF2 function

I am using PBKF2 to derive a encryption key from a password. suppose entropy of my password is y and my PBKF2 function has x number of iterations. So how to calculate the entropy of finale key derived ...
118 views

Is this algorithm demonstrating “proof of work”

Is this algorithm demonstrating proof of work? This is a algorithm where a "token" is combined with a time stamp and then a cryptographic hash is generated from the combination, next the objective is ...
1k views

Is it possible to generate an RSA SHA1 signature only from a public key?

Is it possible to generate signature only from Public key. See example below where i have valid signature but what if I change hash ? Is then any way to do this? Public key(160 bytes): ...
170 views

Diffie-Hellman insecure on addition modulo $n$

Assume that the group $G$ is the set $\mathbb{Z}_{n} = \{0,\ldots, n-1\}$ for a 1024 bit integer and $+$ is addition modulo $n$. Then why would Diffie-Hellman key exchange in this group be insecure?
385 views

Guessing encryption algorithm based on key and ciphertext

Is it possible to tell which encryption algorithm was used, assuming I have a key and a encrypted text? To not complicate the situation let assume we are speaking about symmetric algorithms only. ...
479 views

RSA Signature Weak Padding Attack

Assume that we have a message $m$ of size $n$, and it is padded with two 01 bytes in front. Then the signature $s$ is computed using a private key $ks$. Can we ...
549 views

Pollard’s Rho Method

I can't get my head around Pollard’s Rho Method for solving discrate log problem I have read in a book: The basic idea is to pseudorandomly generate group elements of the form α^i · β^j ...
2k views

With sufficient randomness, is XOR an acceptable mechanism for encrypting?

I have heard criticism of various cryptosystems saying that "at their heart, they were just XOR." Is this just ignorance, or is there something inherently wrong with XOR based ciphers?
258 views

What exactly is inside a private key?

May sound stupid to many, but I would like to have some pointers on what exactly is contained inside a private key. I have decent understanding of public/private keys/certificates (have created them ...
65 views

Are those two distributions indistinguishable?

The Decision composite residuosity problem problem states that is impossible two distinguish between those two ensembles: $\{x^N \mod {N^2} | x \in \mathbb{Z^*_{N{^2}}}\}$ and \$\{r \in ...
142 views

Private Messaging

Suppose Alice and Bob wants to send messages through Sue without revealing to Eve that the exchange took place. Slightly more formally, I don't want Eve to have any advantage telling if Alice is ...
155 views

In S/MIME, are the same certificates always used to sign and encrypt messages?

My assumption is that S/MIME almost always utilizes certificates as follows: My certificate can be used to allow people to encrypt messages and send them to me. My certificate (the same ...
144 views

Logical OR operation in a homomorphic additive cryptosystem

Suppose we have a cryptosystem homomorphic for addition (say Paillier's). Is there a way to perform a logical OR operation between two binary values (with a binary result). We can, of course, obtain ...
2k views

Multi-party encryption algorithm

To give some foreground information: I acknowledge that I am a cryptography newb and not by any means an expert (and probably never will be). In a recent CS class we had several assignments writing ...
112 views

What is the best (thoroughly covering) textbook for application of LFSRs in cryptography? [closed]

What is the best (thoroughly covering) textbook for application of LFSRs in cryptography? (Beside Cipher Systems by Beker & Piper)
56 views

Type A Curves of Supersinglular

In the Type A curve used in Pairing based Cryptography, what is meant by sign0 & sign1 in the expression below? ...