# All Questions

2k views

### Can a shift cipher attain perfect secrecy?

On a practice question for my intro cryptography exam, it asks the following: Assuming that keys are chosen with equal likelihood, the shift cipher provides:    A) computational security ...
890 views

### Learning cryptography using a FPGA

I have a FPGA and am curious what cryptographic applications I can use with it. I'm just a hobbyist / security researcher and not a professional cryptographer. Since I'm creating my own curriculum, ...
2k views

### How can I use eulers totient and the chinese remainder theorem for modular exponentiation?

I'm trying to implement modular exponentiation in Java using Lagrange and the Chinese remainder theorem. The example we've been given is: Let $N = 55 = 5 · 11$ and suppose we want to compute ...
125 views

### When is each key used when encrypting an email using OpenPGP?

When you send an email using PGP to encrypt emails, is the recipients public key used to encrypt the email, or is your private key used? Are they both used? At what points do each of the four keys ...
2k views

### Simulation-based security?

I've been reading Introduction to Modern Cryptography by Katz and Lindell as an introduction to cryptography. The book seems to use the term 'simulator' when it talks about a game like, for instance, ...
527 views

### Can I combine two of SHA-3 candidates cryptography hash functions and obtain more secure Algorithm?

For example, Is possible to combine (Concatenate or Chain or XOR) Skein SHA-3 candidate with Grostl SHA-3 candidate to increase security? Note: I just want more secure output and CPU cycles does not ...
287 views

### Aes encryption -The relevance of static matrix in mixcolumns operation

Can someone explain to me the relevance of the static matrix used for the mixcolumns operation in aes encryption.i.e the relevance of why the byte is multiplied by 2 + next byte multiplied by 3 + next ...
208 views

### What are the dangers of predictable (repeated) plaintext structures?

When using a "good", modern cipher (specifically one that provides ciphertext indistinguishability), is it a problem at all if there is some well-known structure in all plaintexts? For example, ...
2k views

### AES GCM implementation in c#

I am implementing an AES cipher in GCM mode in c# and have a few questions. My code is based on the code found here for reference. I'll copy in the relevant portions. ...
495 views

### Poor man's SSL - is this method as safe as SSL/TLS?

I need to send data between two applications. I've got requirement that says that data should be transmitted using secure protocol such as SSL/TLS. Data is sent using TCP sockets and I don't have ...
317 views

### Using compression to test encryption

Is the uncompressibility of encrypted data a necessary property for a good cryptographic algorithm? To make a crude experiment, I encrypted an 8K file with all 'A' and then compressed both the ...
6k views

### How does one implement the Inverse of AES' MixColumns

I got an answer in the related question about Mixcolumn for encryption, but how about decryption? what will I do? Because it said that I will used this: During decryption the Mix Column the ...
394 views

### How do I demonstrate that a PRNG not designed for cryptography is not suitable for generating passwords?

This is a replication of this question on Stack Overflow. There's class Random in .NET runtime which is designed for use as a cheap fast source of pseudo-random ...
220 views

### Can the premaster secret generated by SRP be used as a secure private key?

It seems like the pre-master secret generated during the SRP protocol would make a good source to generate a shared private key using a secure hash to compress it down into a 128/256 symmetric key. ...
277 views

### Cryptographically strong pseudo-random seq. generators

If a pseudo-random sequence generator is built so that it uses an n-bit seed and outputs a string that is of length x. Let's say one wants to generate a bit string of length y and uses the previous ...
425 views

### How to generate successive stream-cipher keys?

I've identified a weakness in a distributed simulation system I'm looking at, and I'm looking for some advice on how to fix it. Clients initially negotiate an authentication token with a login server ...
288 views

### Seeking special-use fingerprinting/hashing algorithm

For a project I wonder if there exists some kind of fixed-size checksumming/fingerprinting function in which based on this fingerprint given data block 1, it is easy to generate more data blocks that ...
1k views

### Finding CRC collisions for specific divisor

My current textbook (Information Security: Principles and Practice by Mark Stamp) discusses how to determine the CRC of data via long-division, using XOR instead of subtraction to determine the ...
159 views

### How can I repeatedly prove I have data another has seen without sending the data and without the other storing the data?

I would like to know if this is theoretically possible, or impossible, and if possible, if there is any algorithm/protocol to accomplish this... I want another entity, lets call them the Auditor, to ...
523 views

### What algorithm does PGP use to encrypt email?

I know it uses RSA/DSA to create keys, but does it use that same algorithm for the actual cipher?
145 views

### How to collect, process, and transmit data securely?

In my question "Authenticating data generated by a particular build of an open source program", Dave Cary requested that I post a question stating my real problem on a high level rather than the ...
54 views

### How to find collisions in a hash function knowing its coefficent?

Say I have a simple hash function where $x$ is a sequence of integers: $$h(x)=(a_1\cdot x_1+...+ a_n\cdot x_n) \bmod N=\sum_i a_i\cdot x_i \bmod N$$ where $a_1,a_2,a_3,...,a_n$ is the coefficient ...
78 views

### How to make the range of modulo $p$ to $[-\frac{p}{2};\frac{p}{2}]$?

I am using NTL (A Library for doing Number Theory) to implement a FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption) scheme. In general, the range of modulo p is $[-\frac{p}{2};\frac{p}{2}]$ in FHE scheme. However, ...
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### Trusted Third Party Cryptanalysis Labs?

There's no doubt that third party cryptanalysis is an essential part of the crypto ecosystem. It's how we know that there's some degree of practical "goodness" to a new algorithm or protocol. Unlike ...
47 views

### Does XChaCha20 exist with similar properties to XSalsa20?

Does XChaCha20 (built from ChaCha20 just like XSalsa20 is built from Salsa20) exist and have XSalsa20's desirable properties?
75 views

### Can the key-complement property of DES be used against 3DES?

The comments in this recent question about the security of 3DES made me wonder if the key complement property of DES (which reduces its security by ~1 bit) can be used in the meet-in-the-middle attack ...
118 views

### Are there any successful preimage attacks?

Are there any successful preimage attacks on any serious cryptographic hash algorithm or at least on serious-looking non-cryptographic hashes (like MurmurHash)?
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### Winternitz Signature in standard model

I am studying the Winternitz signature and I describe its algorithms in the next W-OTS Key Generation. Select the parameter $w\geq 2$ that is the bit size of the partitions of the message to be ...
135 views

### What is the best current way to cryptographically secure databases?

I'm currently working on a proposal for some secure complete system and one of the things currently lacking is the database security. However I don't want to roll my own crypto there and thereby need ...
134 views

### Theoretical decryption of RSA

I am currently looking into RSA and have some questions. I am interested in theoretical answers, assuming there is infinite time for decryption. Is it necessary to work out the private-key exponent ...
105 views

### Would SHA-1 be safe for certificates with short validity?

There are articles floating around the topic of SHA-1 deprecation. The gist of it is that in (mostly) developing countries, people are still using mobile/computing devices that are 5 years old (or ...