# All Questions

2answers
122 views

### Journals to read in order to keep up to date with interesting research [closed]

I'd love suggestions from crypto.stack as to academic journals to read. They can range from introductory to advanced, as long as it's free (requires no access fees). Feel free to edit this question ...
2answers
1k views

### Generating Encryption Keys from Biometric Fingerprint Templates

How would one go about generating Encryption Keys from Biometric Fingerprint Templates extracted from a fingerprint using either Griaule SDK or DigitalPersona SDK or any other SDK that will return the ...
1answer
97 views

### Efficiency of chaining AES “groups” of blocks

From ISO/IEC 23001-7:2012/Amd 1:2012 10.2.2 Creation of Initialization Vector (Informative) Decryption efficiency may be improved if subsequent initialization vectors use the value of the last ...
1answer
89 views

### order of elliptic curve divisible by prime

Why order "u" of an elliptic curve "E" defined over a finite field "GF (q)" (u = | E / GF (q) |) must be divisible by a large prime number r to be appropriate for cryptographic purposes?
1answer
122 views

### How does CBC work with read-write volumes?

I have read an article about an attack on LUKS in CBC mode and had a look at the WP article about CBC and now I am confused. If I have understood that correctly then changing the plaintext of a block ...
1answer
218 views

### What is the “artificial abort” technique?

In the security proof of Brent Waters's paper Efficient Identity-Based Encryption Without Random Oracles, he uses a novel “artificial abort” step on page 6. At this point the simulator is still ...
1answer
487 views

### Reverse engineering a single checksum byte [closed]

I am working to understand a system which saves a few bytes of data together with what appears to be a single checksum byte that provides a very naive guarantee that the data has not been tampered ...
2answers
216 views

### How can I perform matching on an “encrypted- fingerprint feature matrix” using Fully Homomorphic Encryption?

I am doing a finger-print authentication process. The feature-extraction using minutiae has been done and I get an N x 6 matrix, where the 6 columns are {$x_i$ ...
2answers
201 views

### What are the major flaws and limitations of this hash-based stream cipher design?

K is a 224-bit key. C is a 32-bit counter; it is publicly known. the same value is never used twice. ...
1answer
419 views

### Encryption and HMAC key derivation

I'm deriving keys from a user-supplied passphrase for symmetric encryption using AES-256 in CBC mode with a HMAC for authenticity/integrity. My key derivation function currently looks like this: ...
1answer
114 views

### How does this SSL-related flaw work?

I just saw a video at CNN in which it is claimed that, if the server isn't generating a random public key, the server can be hacked. First how HTTPS works… to be sure I’m on the same page: Server ...
1answer
70 views

### Problem with anonymously merging information from distributed sources

Some Background: There is an entity with an identifier and some information. The identifier of this entity is a string with a known scheme/pattern(Which means the total number of such possible ...
1answer
476 views

### How is padding oracle attack mitigated by encrypt-then-MAC?

Let us suppose Alice sends a message to Bob. As far as I know, the most popular scheme of MAC-then-encrypt is as follows: Alice computes the HMAC of the plaintext using her private key, and then ...
2answers
295 views

### weaknesses in ElGamal with public key of small order

Suppose $p=29$, $\alpha = 2 \in F_p^*$ is a generator of $F_p^*$. Bob picks $d \in \{2,...,27\}$ such that $\beta = \alpha ^d=28 \pmod{29}$. He then sends his $(p,\alpha ,\beta)$ to Alice who herself ...
2answers
156 views

### Understanding math behind RSA key derivation [duplicate]

I was reading through the key derivation for RSA. Here are the steps per wiki - Select strong primes $p$ and $q$ such that $pq = n$ $\phi(n)$ = $(p-1)(q-1)$ select $e$ such that $e$ and $\phi(n)$ ...
1answer
221 views

### How do P2P clients like uTorrent maintain authenticity of files?

I am very new to concepts of cryptography so bear with me and feel free to fill in any information that may seem obvious but something you think someone may not know. At first I was under impression ...
0answers
77 views

### Can you determine an unknown value when it is combined with a known value and you are given the resulting hash? [duplicate]

Say I have a string that I want to keep hidden. You can then enter a known string which is added to the end of the hidden string and you are given the sha256 hash of the combined string. If you were ...
1answer
124 views

### Cryptographic pseudo-random generation of address subsets

Suppose I have devices which broadcast, on an insecure channel, 32-bit addresses. I want to make these devices untraceable - one way to do so is to allocate for each device a distinct subset of ...
1answer
1k views

### Complement property of DES

I'm supposed to show the complement property of DES ($c=DES(p,k) => \bar c = DES(\bar p, \bar k)$). My idea was to just start the algorithm with $\bar p$ and see what happens (ignoring the initial ...
0answers
117 views

### Symmetric-Key Based authentication [closed]

So i've managed to answer all the other cryptography questions, but I have not come across this exam style question before, and need help.
1answer
275 views

### Simple way to extend AES to 256-bit block size

What is the best way to use standard AES with a 128-bit block size to act as a 256-bit block cipher? I am aware of CMC and EME which seem to serve this purpose, but they seem to be more complicated ...
1answer
400 views

### Message lengths with AES CTR mode?

Im working on my own AES implementation as a personal educational exercise (not for production use), and a book im using as a resource states: In the case of CTR, we are merely XORing the output ...
2answers
426 views

### Shamir Secret sharing - Can share generator keep x values secret?

I'm wondering, in Shamir secret sharing, can generator of the shares, keep the x values which are used in evaluating the polynomial to obtain y values (i.e., the shares) secret, and whenever the ...
1answer
684 views

### One-time pad, zero key and Shannon

I'm supposed to prove that OTP without the zero key $k=0^n$ is not perfectly secret anymore. I understand that it's not because an attacker learns something by looking at the plaintext and ciphertext. ...
2answers
239 views

### Which concrete applications benefit from Oblivious RAM constructions?

The main motivation for Oblivious RAM (ORAM) is that, for instance, in the "cloud" setting a client outsources his data to a server in the form of encrypted blocks. Later on, he wants to perform read ...
1answer
265 views

### Is AES-256 over AES-128 weakening the original encryption?

When transfering data using TLS the browser and server agree the cipher suite to be used - so for example this could be chosen as AES-128 and is (probably) outside of my control. If I separately ...
1answer
74 views

### Security assessment between $g^{a_ix_i+r_i}$ and $g^{x_i+r_i}$ [closed]

Imagine a tagging system whose security requirements imply to learn nothing from the tag about the encoded value. We consider a plaintext space $X \in \mathbb{Z}_p$ and a group $\mathbb{G}$ where ...
4answers
778 views

### Which tamper-protection algorithm provides the shortest output?

Background When making web applications you sometimes need to pass data along with the form which isn't visible to the user. Database IDs are the most common, but texts and IDs are sometimes ...
1answer
131 views

### Common password derivation function for different encryption methods

I'm writing a simple encryption/decryption library which has the following requirements: For key derivation functions, support: $SHA256 \rightarrow bcrypt$ (since $bcrypt$ limits input passphrase ...
1answer
110 views

### Prefix property for variable length pseudo-random generators

I'm currently working through Katz & Lindell's Introduction to Modern Cryptography. In section 3.4.2, they introduce the definition of a variable output-length pseudorandom generator $G$. The ...
0answers
67 views

### Berlekamp-Massey algorithm, correct stepping

I'm trying to use the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm on the following bit sequence: 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 I have the correct answer and most of the approach to get there, but I'm unable to fill in what I ...
2answers
211 views

### How can one encrypt with RSA (or ElGamal) without revealing whom the ciphertext is intended for?

Imagine Alice wants to encrypt for Bob and post this encryption publicly, so that only Bob can decrypt but no one can other than Alice or Bob tell that the message was encrypted for Bob. The naive ...
1answer
2k views

### how to use common modulus attack?

I am struck with the following problem: Let Alice, Bob, Chris and Eve communicate over a public network. They encrypt all messages they send using RSA system. Bob and Chris have the RSA modulus ...
1answer
608 views

### Perfect Forward Secrecy with NaCl

I would like to use the NaCl cryptography library (or TweetNaCl), but I would very much like to have perfect forward secrecy for my application. From what I understand, all Bob needs to to decrypt a ...
2answers
193 views

### Advantages to knowing $p$ and $q$ in Blum Blum Shub?

Do you gain any advantage by knowing the factorization of $M$ (over just knowing $M$ itself) in the Blum Blum Shub generator? The only advantage I see is being able to calculate the $i$-th number ...
1answer
285 views

### Is C25519/Ed25519 “twist secure”?

This recent new curve mentions something that's new to me: twist security. http://safecurves.cr.yp.to/bada55.html Are the existing C25519/Ed25519 curves secure against this form of attack?
1answer
195 views

### ElGamal digital signature. why mod p-1 in delta?

Im trying to figure out why $\delta$ in the signature part of ElGamal has mod $p-1$ when $\gamma$ has mod $p$? $\gamma = \alpha^k \mod p$ $\delta = (x-a\gamma)k^{-1} \mod p-1$
1answer
72 views

### How exactly are PRNG's used to encrypt material, and what makes one any more secure than the other?

I hope my question isn't as lazy as the title indicates. What I want to ask is how people literally integrate a PRNG with encrypting material. I wrote a silly little script in Python a while back ...
1answer
74 views

### Knapsack Public to Private (Superincreasing knapsack)

I need to convert a hard knapsack to a superincreasing knapsack. I have these superincreasing values (3,6,11,22,43,87). I also have w = 7 and n = 173. I converted the superincreasing values to hard ...
1answer
124 views

### Ed25519 with R replaced by H(RAM)?

Ed25519 signatures consist of $(R, s)$, where $s = r + H(RAM)a$ $mod$ $l$, and $R = rB$. This differs from the Schnorr signature where instead of $R$, the signature contains the hash $h=H(RAM)$. ...
3answers
165 views

### Is it possible to find data which makes sense when decrypted with different keys?

In theory, does a piece of data exist which, when encrypted (using any method) with a given key, makes some sense when decrypted with the wrong key? Here, a definition of "some sense" might be ...
1answer
220 views

### Building a stream-cipher out of a hash function?

I've already read this: Is it feasible to build a stream cipher from a cryptographic hash function? However, my proposed construction differs… Suppose the hash generates N bits. These bits are split ...
2answers
571 views

1answer
66 views

### Send a symmetric key generated by one user to other users (more than two) using a server

I am developing a software in which I am using AES for encrypting messages shared in a group. The key is generated by one user, the admin of the group and needs to be shared with other members. How ...
1answer
812 views

### Value of “counter” when decrypting AES in CTR mode?

If – when using AES in CTR mode – you decide to use the setup where you combine the IV and the block count value into a single value, as suggested here, the first 12 bytes are your IV and the last 4 ...
1answer
202 views

### How is a Yubikey static password derived from the AES key?

When I configure a Yubikey slot as static, it's not documented or obvious how the static password yielded by a press relates to the AES key I set. For example: ...

15 30 50 per page