# All Questions

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### Is javascript RSA signing safe?

I'm currently working on a secure open source messaging system (https://github.com/DSMNET/DSMNET). Currently I'm using the cryptico.js (https://github.com/wwwtyro/cryptico) library to encrypt all the ...
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### Proof of elliptic curve difficulty

Are there any proofs that cryptographic functions on an elliptic curve are any more difficult than the analogues over modulo arithmetic? While at present, ECC appears to be more difficult, as it is ...
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### Distributed Asymmetric Key Decryption with threshold

Threshold decryption of public key encryption schemes allows the decryption key to be distributed among trustees. Then, to decrypt the cipher text it requires at least threshold t trustees to run the ...
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### What are some of the major differences between PyNaCl and PyCrypto? [closed]

It seems like one can generate keys and encrypt data with both libraries. Is one better than the other? Do they attempt to solve different problems? Is one more secure than the other?
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### Who uses Dual_EC_DRBG?

Recent news articles have suggested that the NSA may be involved in trying to influence the cryptography in public standards or commercially deployed software, to enable the NSA to decrypt the ...
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### Is there an encryption/decryption algorithm that can give two different outputs?

The recent revelations that airport staff can detain travellers in an interrogation room and force them to give over passwords to encrypted-HDD laptops under threat of jail time has made me think ...
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### Can GCM be used in incremental mode?

I want to sync blobs over the network and the most frequent change will be appending to blob. To minimize data amount sent I would prefer to encrypt appended data, send it over the network, append to ...
621 views

### Will rehashing an SHA256 hash continually, eventually produce every possible value?

So let's say you had infinite time and energy. You have a hashed string of some sort. Because you have infinite time and energy, you can produce a collision(or the original value) easily enough. But, ...
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### What is an active S-Box?

I don't understand what an active s-box is (in reference of design criteria 8 of the DES). Because according to DES, all 8 s-boxes are used every round. But this is not what active means. So my ...
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### Key exchange and man in the middle issue. Secure solution

I am trying to design MiTM protected key exchange algorithm. For instance I am using RSA asymmetric keys. Alice and Bob respectively have each their own pair of keys. And they should be able to ...
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### PBKDF2 uses HMAC-SHA1 to generate keys, but what is the key for the HMAC?

I was reading up on PBKDF2 and noted the following: DK = PBKDF2(PRF, Password, Salt, c, dkLen) PRF is a keyed HMAC, but I can't seem to find out what they use ...
1k views

### RSA PCKS1 v2.1 RSAES-OAEP algorithm

Using RSA public key (n,e) the encryption of a message is c= (m^e) mod n and the corresponding message is decrypted as ...
415 views

### Why the symmetric key layer in PGP?

I've been familiarizing myself with the basics of PGP. If I understand correctly, PGP symmetrically encrypts the data of interest using a random single-use key, then encrypts the encrypted data and ...
2k views

### Using one-way hash functions as the encryption method

Suppose two parties want to communicate securely with each other (Bob and Alice) using a simple messaging system in English. There are approximately 180,000 currently used words in the English ...
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### One-way function and $EXP$

All examples of one-way functions I have see till now are closely related to the assumption that $NP\neq P$ (or even weaker ones, such as $UP\neq P$), but why not considering the theorem $P\neq EXP$? ...
321 views

### What's wrong with my security model - or how can it be attacked?

I'm working on a little personal project where security is very important, and I've thought for a while about the best way to do this. Now I am looking for a little outside help on good practices. The ...
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### Is it possible to translate a piece of language into your own without knowing the language? [closed]

I understand the the texts within the Voynich Manuscript are of an unknown language, and yet cryptographers are still working on it and still trying to decipher it. Does that mean that it is possible ...
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### Where can I double check my elliptic curve results?

I am trying to do some elliptic curve calculations by hand, just to refresh myself on how the system works. I calculated some points and did some operations by hand. I am trying to double check my ...
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### Key Refresh in Diffie-Hellman

Assume the case, that two participants have agreed on a key $K=g^{ab} \mod p$ via Diffie Hellman. I have the need to change the key every now and then. The first idea I had was to simply initiate a ...
2k views

### Initialization vector in symmetric-key encryption

Can we use symmetric-key algorithms without an initialization vector? I am making an app where both the sender and receiver share a key and there is no way to create an initialization vector for each ...
149 views

### Feedback requested on a method of posting a message without revealing the author

So I was thinking about variations on the Dining Cryptographers problem - In some cases, it's useful to be able to post a message without revealing the source, but with the additional constraint of ...
357 views

### What is the relation between hash chaining and chosen prefix attack

I read that hash chaining can be used to prevent hash collisions, while the chosen prefix attack allows hash collisions for algorithms like MD5. How are they related? Does hash chaining prevent the ...
483 views

### RSA smaller number work-out-by-hand not working - I think I made a mistake

I tried out the paper/pencil explanation @ http://sergematovic.tripod.com/rsa1.html, and it seemed to make sense just fine until I came to decryption. Here is what I worked out: Key Creation: Choose ...
331 views

### Elliptic Curve Cryptography Encryption Results

I'm playing around with a package that does Elliptic Curve Cryptography from http://jecc.sourceforge.net/ Every time I encrypt a value it produced a different result (same private key). However I'm ...
555 views

### Is the first version of the Message-Digest algorithm by Ronald Rivest publically available?

Diving into the history and evolution of the Message-Digest algorithm by Ronald Rivest, I have been able to track back papers from MD6 down to MD2. Yet, somehow I can not seem to be able to find any ...
3k views

### What is the meaning of “trapdoor” in cryptography?

I do not really understand the meaning of a "trapdoor" in cryptography, so here are my questions: What is the meaning of trapdoor and how can I convert a word or string using a trapdoor in ...
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### Storing Credentials for a Third Party

(Originally posted to SOF, but I got no answers) I am designing a small application for use inside my company. My application needs to connect to a third party website on behalf of my application ...
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### LogSpace Merkle Traversal

I am studying LogSpace Merkle Tree Traversal algorithm in "Post Quantum Cryptography". I don't understand the Table 1 on page 58. My question is: Why within of the $2^h$ rounds for $NEED_h$ exist ...
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### Security of cloud computational protocols in UC Framework?

The universal composability allows one to the analyze security of cryptographic protocols . But it does have some gaps when it comes to analyzing few protocols especially two party cases when there is ...
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### 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 ...
262 views

### Proof of correctness of a homomorphic ElGamal sum

Let's suppose we are using the exponential ElGamal as a public-key encryption scheme, so that we encrypt $g^m$ instead of $m$, for some generator $g$. Let $x$ be the private key, and $h=g^x$ be the ...
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### AES CTR with similar IVs and same key

Lets say there is a piece of software that uses AES CTR to encrypt different messages using the same key but with slightly different IVs So for example, a 16 byte IV, the 2nd 8 bytes are always the ...
341 views

### Hamming Distance vs. Index of Coincidence

When analyzing a repeating-key xor cipher to find the key length, I've read about two key methods (assuming there aren't just repeating chunks of ciphertext for Kasiski's method), for some assumed key ...
1k views

### HMAC-SHA1 input size

I know that the HMAC is a message authentication code that uses a cryptographic key in conjunction with a hash function (SHA1 , MD5, etc.). The HMAC output is 160 bits for HMAC-SHA160 and 256 bits for ...
208 views

### Can you really insert the text you want in one-time pad?

The Wikipedia article "One-time pad ~ Authentication" says : For example, an attacker who knows that the message contains "meet jane and me tomorrow at three thirty pm" at a particular point can ...
241 views

### Multiple iterations of AES for key derivation?

The keepass password manager uses multiple rounds of AES for its key derivation, as described here. I was somewhat surprised that it wasn't using pbkdf2, bcrypt, or something more common. ...
388 views

### Finite fields and ECC

I understand modular arithmetic(or at least I think I do!) and I've tried to read and learn about how the Math in RSA works(and I think it went pretty well). I've been reading up on ECC and it looks ...
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### How secure is this use of Ziv-Lempel encoding?

I'm reading patent application US 20120278897 A1 — “System and method of sort-order preserving tokenization”. Near the bottom they describe their token generation algorithm, which basically involves ...