# All Questions

946 views

### Is .NET DESCryptoServiceProvider secure in this case?

I have the following piece of .NET code (see below). I know that DES is not quite secure, I saw that MSDN does not recommend using DES, only for compatibility with legacy programs. I also saw that ...
297 views

### Do Export Restrictions Still Apply To The Key Length of RC4?

I've just read a paper from 2004 which stated that the RC4 encryption algorithm was restricted to a 40 bit key size when exported from the USA; however the reference for this information (Applied ...
96 views

### Bit level permutation

Could anyone explain how secure is bit level permutation? What is the most serious threat against the security of this kind of cipher? Thank you
92 views

### Breaking RSA moduli

Let suppose that the sizes of factors $p$ and $q$ are $b$ bits. We construct two RSA numbers $n$, $n'$ of same sizes. Can we say that the duration to break these two numbers is two times the duration ...
379 views

### What is meaning of “Decipher the rest of the message by deducing additional words”?

I have an assignment in cryptography. I am not asking here answer, but meaning of question. This is a question : 2.4 The following ciphertext was generated using a simple substitution algorithm. ...
233 views

### Does this guarantee a unique 32 bit Hash?

I came across some source code that loosely does the below in order to achieve a 32 bit hash. The input string is passed through MD5 to get 16 bytes Hash (as usual). Then the 16 bytes are split into ...
320 views

### how to find key matrix in hill cipher

I want to solve this problem but there are 3 known plaintext-ciphertext pairs. The key of Hill cipher is a 3*3 matrix as k=[k1,k2,3; k4,k5,k6; k7,k8,k9] where the unknown ...
351 views

### Fast AES-128 on 32 bits encryption

Suppose in AES-128, there are $5$ tables, namely Te0, Te1, Te2, Te3, Te0 which help in fast encryption on $32$ bits CPU. Each table contains 256 numbers, where each number is $4$ bytes. Te4's ...
898 views

### Is the 64-bit blocksize a fatal issue when encrypting TBs of data with Blowfish CBC?

Crashplan uses 448-bit Blowfish to encrypt the data you send them. The mode used is CBC, keys are multiple use, and IVs are generated with SecureRandom from JCE. Keys are not derived from the ...
633 views

### RSA given q, p and e?

I am given the q, p, and e values for an RSA key, along with an encrypted message. Here are ...
84 views

### Can adding nonces make challenge response authentications weaker?

In a custom protocol we want to replace an aged tiger32 based challenge response authentication. I suggested that we use something existing, so threw HMAC into the room. As per wikipedia it works as: ...
91 views

### side channel attacks on AES

Say you have a web application that's performing AES encryption. What sorts of side channel attacks should one keep an eye out for? Timing attacks affect RSA more than symmetric ciphers in-so-far as ...
723 views

### Is there a string that's hash is equal to itself?

I was wondering if there's any string that has a hash equal to itself, so that – when using any (none specific) hash function – the hash would be equal to that string? so that: ...
136 views

### Session based AES with random key and static salt

I'm currently using aes to encrypt/decrypt messages to and from a web service. When the user establishes a session he sends a random generated secret via rsa public key. This secret is used to ...
314 views

### Are hash functions chaotic?

I'm looking into "bitcoin like" mining processes. Say a security process uses a hash of data as proof that the data was known at some point in time. From what I understand, hash functions are ...
372 views

### Why not use an algorithm's code rather than data itself for one time pads?

Instead of using actual data for one time pads, what would be different if the code for an algorithm was exchanged so that to acquire the pad one would execute the algorithm and use its output? Why ...
209 views

### Differential Cryptanalysis of FEAL-4

I'm currently carrying out a differential attack on the FEAL-4 algorithm, however I have hit a bit of a wall. Basically I attacked the final round first ($K3$) using the differential characteristic ...
518 views

### Does AES CTR mode store header information in encrypted files?

According to the movable-type.co.uk website, In the ‘counter mode’ used in this implementation, a counter which changes with each block is first encrypted, and the result is bitwise xor’d with the ...
84 views

### advantages of hashing over elliptic curve signatures for a proof of work protocol

I'm trying to create a proof-of-work protocol for a proof-of-concept software, and it's basically something like this: ...
61 views

When plaintext padding is required, there are various commonly-used padding techniques. It seems the two most used approaches are : Always add at least one byte of padding, and have every byte of ...
54 views

### FEAL-4 Wrong outputs of Round Functions

On page 2 of this article, there is example of FEAL-4. At round 2, the input to F (Round Function) is 0x80800000. As F accepts only 4 bytes I divide the input by 2 so that (As I assume the result ...
183 views

### Is this chat protocol safe?

I am in the design phase of a secure chat application at the moment. I am trying to make this as secure as possible. The Serverprovider should not have access to the messagedata. So my idea was the ...
128 views

### What does “nonlinear mapping” mean?

Page 15 of the Keccak reference (PDF) explains that the $Chi$ step mapping of the Keccak-f permutation in Keccak is defined to be “nonlinear mapping”. Without this, the complete permutation would be ...
120 views

### How to guarantee every plaintext is in a rainbow table?

This guide says that for a rainbow table or pre-computed hash chain, you can only get a probability that a plaintext is in a table, not a guarantee. Is there a way to guarantee every possible ...
293 views

### Skein or Keccak stream cipher construction

I am wondering if using Skein or the Keccak hash algorithm in this construction (as a stream cipher) is secure: $H$ = Keccak or Skein hash with a 256 bit output $K$ = The main 256 bit random key, ...
473 views

### What benefits do substitution boxes and permutation boxes offer in DES?

I understand that with more encryption rounds the more complex the ciphertext becomes due to multiple substitutions and permutations. What I don't understand is the purpose of these features. I am ...
297 views

### Cryptographic data structure: sparse array without membership test

I would like a data structure supporting two operations: $\mathsf{set}(k,v)$ and $\mathsf{get}(k)$, with the following properties: $k$ can be any number between $0$ and something impressively large, ...
5k views

### What exactly is a negligible (and non-negligible) function?

The mathematical definition of neglible and non-neglible functions is fairly clear-cut, but why they are important and how they are used in cryptography?
450 views

### What is the difference between “secp…” and “sect…”?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended elliptic curve domain parameters to have names such as “secp…” and “sect…”. For example: “secp224k1” and “sect571k1”. What is ...
183 views

### RC4 key schedule and algorithm design

I've looked up RC4 algorithm and it's seems easy enough but some parts of it seem random to me. In the key schedule part take for example the following part : ...
342 views

### Homomorphic encryption based on XOR

Consider the values $a$ and $b$ are encrypted as $c_1=(a \oplus D)$ and $c_2=(b \oplus D)$. My question is: can we derive $b+a$ from any combination of $c_1$ and $c_2$? Note: I admit that the ...
66 views

### What does OIW stand for

There seem to be many OID's that have been put in the ASN.1 tree that have the following ISO identified organization: OIW. One example is SHA-1 (ElGamal seems to be another): ...
564 views

### Does omitting the first two lines of RC4's pseudo-random generation algorithm weaken the cipher?

A particular educational software program published by a U.S. government agency uses a variant of RC4 to obfuscate its data files (see Stack Overflow question). The variant of RC4 in question is ...
193 views

### Has there been any cryptanalysis of AES under a non-uniformly distributed key?

The standard security property demanded of a blockcipher is that it be a pseudo-random permutation; i.e., given a uniformly random key, the blockcipher should be computationally indistinguishable from ...
352 views

### Single-purpose symmetric encryption scheme for single files

I'm writing a simple password manager program that will encrypt/decrypt a single file (it's size will most likely stay under a few K). This is my initial file format design: ...
114 views

### Question about second preimage resistance of hash function combiner

Let $\Pi=(Gen_1,H_1)$ and $\Pi=(Gen_2,H_2)$ be two hash functions. Define $(Gen, H)$ so that $Gen$ runs $Gen_1$ and $Gen_2$ obtaining $s_1$ and $s_2$ respectively. Then let ...
307 views

### Generating child keys for a hill climb algorithm

As a little pet project I'm writing some code to do a little cryptanalysis. Starting with something simple I have created a hill climbing algorithm for solving a simple substitution cipher. So I ...
320 views

### Correctness vs Completeness

What is the conceptual difference between the definition of correctness and completeness in verifiable cryptographic protocols? They justify that if a statement is correct then the verification should ...
48 views

### Need to choose an ecnryption method [closed]

I've got an homework to implement an encryption algorithm (I can choose what), now we didn't learn about encryptions yet, I guess you can call it pre-class homework or something, I know what is ...
4k views

### How to choose between AES-CCM and AES-GCM for storage volume encryption

We are using the encryption built into Solaris 11 ZFS, which offers the choice between CCM (CBC counter mode) and GCM (Galois counter mode). What are the pros and cons of choosing each of these cipher ...
113 views

### What is the translation for “hash” in french? [closed]

I am doing a French presentation on basic cryptography, and the generation of random numbers. Most terms are easily translatable, but I can't seem to find a word for hash, as in cryptographic hashing, ...
205 views

### Is deniable error-correction possible?

This question came up as I tried to answer an earlier question I asked: cryptographic data structure wanted: sparse array without membership test. I still have not resolved that question to my ...
260 views

### Small Encryption Exponent

I am trying to crack an unpadded RSA set up for a homework. I have public key (R,e) and encrypted message E. ...
3k views

### Strength of MD5 in finding duplicate files

Why are there a lot of duplicate file finder applications which are using MD5 Algorithm? What is the strength of MD5 in terms of searching duplicate files in hard disk or flash driver or any other ...
298 views

### How does Blowfish avoid successful cryptanalysis? [closed]

I have researched the Blowfish algorithm and am curious as to why there exists no effective cryptanalysis for this algorithm as of yet. What basic principles or features allow Blowfish to achieve ...
447 views

### Any weakness when sha256'ing output of sha256, repeatedly?

Is it significantly easier to reverse a sha256 hash if you know that the input was a 32 byte output of sha256? I assume for most outputs of sha256 there will be zero, one or two possible 32 byte ...
185 views

### Triple DES in Firefox - in practice

Reading about triple DES and understanding the principles, I am still curious how Firefox defines their three keys for the encryption/decryption. Suppose that the user saves his passwords in the ...
120 views

### Known-plaintext attack on two-dimensional affine cipher

Problem: We have a two-dimensional affine cipher with $n = 2,\,\,\,\mathcal{P} = \mathcal{C} = {\mathbb{F}_{16}^2}$, where $\mathcal{K} = \{ A,\,\,b\}$ and $b = (0,0)$. The encryption and decryption ...
I am trying to implement a proposed improved algorithm of RSA . Here the author has increased the number of exponents. However I am unable to understand what $h$ is in the Key generation step. Can ...