# All Questions

508 views

### Using Chi-Square for Vigenère Cipher

I am writing a program which will use Chi-Square to determine which is the correct keyword for a ciphertext via Vigenère cipher. I came across a website that describes the Chi-Square statistics in a ...
282 views

### How is the x coordinate of a “point at infinity” encoded in a Secp256k1 signature?

I'm testing an implementation of Bitcoin, which uses the curve Secp256k1 for ECDSA, and I want to see how it handles the point at infinity ($0$) if present in a signature. For example, r could be the ...
208 views

### Questions on rank-attacks in Multivariate Cryptography

While reading this article on rank attacks on STS (a public-key scheme based on Multivariate Quadratic (MQ) equations), I stumbled upon some claims that I've also seen in other presentations on ...
42 views

### School exercise on untrusted channel comunication [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Why is H(k||x) not a secure MAC construction? I've the following problem: two parties, A and B, share a secret key Kab. M is a plaintext message, H an unkeyed hash ...
303 views

### RSA and One Time Password (OTP) service

What is the expert cryptographic opinion on the following? Assume that there is a web server and a client on web page. User on the Client calls an OTP web service on the server which: creates a RSA ...
149 views

### Do practical key-less cryptosystems exist?

Hopefully the question isn't too broad or off. Basically, are there any practical, and by practical I mean secure enough that a ciphertext only attack is infeasible, key-less cryptosystems? For ...
499 views

### What are the differences between proofs based on simulation and proofs based on games?

what are the main pros and cons of proving the "security" of a crypto scheme under simulation proofs instead of game based proofs?
202 views

### Creating colliding x509 certificates: Crafting RSA moduli step

I am trying to generate 2 x509 certificates with the same signature but different values in the common name field, based on md5 collisions, as it was specified in this paper (page 7). Now I have ...
685 views

### What is a smart card?

In many cryptographic protocols, some information is transmitted within smart cards. So, what is a smart card? Is it a physical card? What are they used for in cryptographic protocols?
342 views

### Cryptographic Symmetric Stream Cipher

Let me know a cryptographic symmetric stream cipher system with only two functions say S() and P() and it should satisfy the ...
109 views

### Using UMAC with stream cypher

I understand that most stream ciphers, due to being applied with a simple XOR, are specially fragile against data tampering, and must be used with some MAC mechanism. So I am investigating the use of ...
549 views

### Theoretical pi-based stream cipher

Let's pretend that all digits of pi are known and arbitrarily long sequences of digits are trivial to get. Further, some mathematician proves that there are no patterns in pi. We could create a stream ...
135 views

### Discrete log analog of ECM factoring algorithm?

Anecdotally, most factoring algorithms have a corresponding variant algorithm that can be used to attack the discrete log problem using similar ideas. Is there an analog of the elliptic curve (ECM) ...
142 views

### How can encryption software accept password lengths which are not one of the AES key lengths?

AES comes with key sizes of 128, 192, and 256 bit. But in Truecrypt or other crypto software we can use passwords of different length, even less than 128 bit or more than 256 bit. How is this ...
638 views

### Hashing passwords with a salt - why use different salt for everyone?

Given a database where we have usernames and passwords, we want to secure users' passwords by hashing them. We should not use only username and passwords in this hash, as someone having data from ...
177 views

### How much do we trust KEA1 Assumption?

Let $$(g,h=g^s,q)$$ be a tuple such that $g$ is a generator for a group $\mathbb{G}$ of ord $q$ and $s$ is uniformly random in $\mathbb{Z}_q$. The KEA1 Assumption saies that for any adversary ...
161 views

### Generating non-supersingular elliptic curves for symmetric pairings

I am looking into the application of pairings in CPABE in particular. I've notice that the scheme uses a supersingular curve as the basis of the pairing. Looking through Ben Lynn's thesis for the ...
145 views

### GGM PRG construction: Why do we need to change keys all the time with underlying PRG

When constructing a PRF that has n bit input using the GGM PRG, why do we always have to recursively run the PRG using its previous output as a seed key n times. Instead, why don't we run the PRG n ...
220 views

### How to find an element of high-order in an RSA group?

Is this even possible? The RSA group is not cyclic, so usually you wouldn't find a generator for accessing all group elements. What happens if you use the RSA group in a scenario where you want that ...
84 views

### What is the most secure way to let Alice “input” her private key, transfer it to the server and decrypt the message?

What is the most secure way to let Alice "input" her private key, transfer it to the server and decrypt the message? (Then destroy the private key on the server) Every connection is using SSL. ...
336 views

### What is the most paranoid way to exchange messages? [closed]

I'm looking for a way for Alice to send a message or a file to Bob in the most paranoid way possible (over the internet). It can be asymmetric or symmetric. But According to some articles, AES ...
149 views

### Cryptographic Primitive Method

Is there any cryptographic primitive bijective (one-to-one and onto) function for creating cryptographic tools like symmetric encryption/decryption, Hash code generator, MAC, HMAC and Random number ...
174 views

### Secure communication between multiple peers on a public channel

I am wondering how can I secure communications between multiple peers over a public channel, like an IRC channel. With two peers it is easy - they exchange their encryption keys and decrypt the ...
244 views

### What is a block cipher?

I have read about block ciphers, but I do not understand the topic completely. Is a block cipher a way to send data or a way to encrypt data? How is the data divided into multiply blocks before it ...
364 views

### Is there a length-preserving encryption scheme?

Is there a length-preserving encryption scheme, that preserves the lengths of input sizes such that the length of the input plain text is same as length of the output cipher text ?
160 views

### Why does Rijndael with a 256-bit block require the bottom two rows to be shifted one more space than usual?

From Wikipedia: For a 256-bit block, the first row is unchanged and the shifting for the second, third and fourth row is 1 byte, 3 bytes and 4 bytes respectively. Why the change? Is there any ...
114 views

I was wondering if hashing a password with the password would be a good way of encrypting the password. So, the user must know his/her password to get the same result as the one in the database. Also, ...
585 views

### 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? ...
405 views

### In the Paillier cryptosystem, is there a method to judge whether an encrypted number is less than 0 (without the private key)

Or, is there a cryptosystem that is both order-perserving and additive homomorphic?
543 views

### RSA private key format for Mega

I've been trying to reverse engineer Mega's (mega.co.nz) API calls. And stopped on the step where client needs to decrypt session id with provided RSA key. I can get key data, but I have no idea how ...
140 views

### How to generate a key using any m passwords out of total n?

My application requires an AES-256 key K for some secure operation. In order to avoid saving this key in application, I have implemented following scheme: There ...
250 views

### Understanding padding oracles - is an attack plausible in my scenario?

I have a scheme that, long story short, uses AES in CBC mode to encrypt third-party credentials for user accounts with a password-derived key. It's been mentioned that the use of CBC mode is a ...
769 views

### Is Encrypt+HMAC stronger than AEAD?

There are a few posts that I've come across that seem to infer that using regular encryption and a MAC might be better than using the newer AEAD (ie: AES/GCM) modes. ...
228 views

### Encrypting or HMACing password digests

Assuming I'm using bcrypt to digest passwords, is any additional security gained by either encrypting or HMACing the resulting digests? By requiring a key to compare password hashes, I would expect ...
185 views

### Non-cryptographic hash function as MAC for stream ciphers

I understand that for a stream cipher to be useful, there must be a way to verify that the message was not tampered with (bits were flipped by an attacker). So, instead of using some cryptographic ...
192 views

### Does it take brute force to find a pair of plaintext and ciphertext that each follow a certain condition, given an AES encryption key?

Suppose that I have an AES key $K$, and I'm instructed to find a plaintext such that the first 32 bits of the plaintext are some string of bits $S_1$, and the last 32 bits of the ciphertext once the ...
142 views

### Discrete logs on elliptic curve with embedding degree 3 with the 'MOV' attack

The curve $E(\mathbb{F}_{47}):y^2=x^3+x+38$ has order $61$ and $61|47^3-1$ so the embedding degree of $E$ is $3$ and therefore the MOV attack, presumably using some sort of distortion map and a ...
100 views

### Two files encrypted with related data versus one file

I have some code that takes a list of credit-card numbers, splits the number into two chunks, one chunk is 8 characters long, the other chunk is the remainder. Each series of chunks is saved into ...
1k views

### Any efficient text-based steganographic schemes?

While there are sophisticated and efficient steganographic schemes with images as cover available, I am yet ignorant of the existence of any fairly efficient and secure schemes with texts as cover. ...
354 views

### Security for IV in AES-GCM mode

I'd like to use AES-GCM instead of HMAC for authentication and privacy in a token used in a web application, but I'm unsure how to securely tag each token with an IV. Is it safe for me to prepend the ...
317 views

### Modulus for elliptic curve point multiplication

I want to implement a point multiplication ($k \cdot P$) operation on FPGA. I have a BN curve $y^2=x^3+2$, and a scalar value $k$. The $x$ and $y$ coordinates of point $P$ are of 256 bits. In the ...
194 views

### Why work in a subgroup QR(n) of an RSA group $Z^*_n$?

I sometimes read in papers that a (sub-)group generator $g$ is taken from $\mathrm{QR}(n)$ instead of $\mathbb{Z}^*_n$, where $n = p \cdot q$ and $p$ and $q$ are prime. Is there a reason for this? ...
448 views

### How compared encryption algorithm in terms of efficiency

I want to compare two cryptographic algorithms. The first algorithm is RSA, and second algorithm is ElGamal elliptic curve cryptography. Now, I’m looking for a way to compare the speed of the two ...
118 views

### Any implication of a Yale result to security of quantum cryptology?

Quantum key distribution depends, if I don't err, on (irreversible) damages done by MITM's measurements on qbits. Now news.yale.edu/2013/01/11/new-qubit-control-bodes-well-future-quantum-computing ...
523 views

### How can I calculate the time complexity of modular arithmetic?

I'm doing modular arithmetic in a Java program, and I want to calculate the time complexity of the individual operations. $$c= a · b \bmod n$$ $$m = a^{-1} · b \bmod n$$ How do I get an ...
128 views

### How does this Cesar Cipher work?

Suppose I have this cryptogram: http://pastebin.com/QpfRMBg1 Clearly it's a Ceasar Cipher which decrypts to: http://pastebin.com/r50heZuU with a simple shift of 10... OKay, no big deal. Let's take a ...
413 views

### How does using salt reduce rainbow table attack?

I could create a rainbow table for a particular salt value and still create a successful attack similar to one without salt value.
269 views

### Finding a collision for a hash function

I'm trying to find a collision for the following (modified) Merkle–Damgård hash function. Suppose we already have a hash function $h : \mathbb{Z}_2^{2·n} \to \mathbb{Z}_2^n$ for fixed length bit ...