# All Questions

1k views

### AES-CTR vulnerability to cryptographic oracle

I am new to cryptographic issues and from what I googled so far I could not retrieve the information I need. Consider the use of AES-128 in CTR mode. Let M be the set of possible plaintexts, for ...
287 views

### Source for examples with broken cryptography

I've heard again and again that many crypto systems have been broken in the past for one reason or another and that it is best to use one that has been peer reviewed, etc etc. However, I've yet to see ...
285 views

### FIPS 140 compliance for encrypted files

Does FIPS 140-2 require specific key sizes, or does it have specific requirements for the data? In other words, if I encrypt a file, how I can check whether it is FIPS-compliant or not? Does only the ...
172 views

### Is such a crypto-system available?

$E(k_1, pt) = c_1, E(k_2, c_1) = c_2, D(k_{new}, c_2) = pt$, where $k_{new} = f(k_1, k_2).$ Sharing $k_{new}$ and $k_2$ should reveal no information about $k_1$. Clarifications: Being able to ...
318 views

### What are some approaches to attack an triple key polyalphabetic cipher when the IV key and PT key are known?

The cipher is an triple key polyalphabetic cipher also known as an Quagmire IV by the ACA. An example would be here: Quagmire IV example and info (pardon the ads) I posses the IV key and the PT key. ...
84 views

### Zero-knowledge identification of the majority commitment

Alice is communicating with $n$ people. We do not assume that the $n$ people don't trust each other or trust Alice. Alice doesn't trust them either, and needs to assume that they will not form a ...
818 views

### Ideal passphrase length: old diceware method (5 words) vs. your Bitcoin wallet.dat passphrase lenght (8 words) and doubling passwords?

I made a cool 5 word passphrase back then using the old Diceware method and use it as a master password. The question is as computing power increases will we need to add more and more words to our ...
215 views

### Elgamal test vectors

I know that Elgamal algorithms have fallen out of fashion, and they are not included in any widespread cryptographic standard nowadays. However, they are still present in several popular crypto ...
101 views

### What is RSA key normalization?

How can I understand the term RSA key normalization? What exactly is done in the process?? Please explain.
314 views

### Commutativity of keyed hashes

Definition ${H_1}^{K_1}(X)$ means data $X$ hashed by keyed hashing algorithm $H_1$ with key $K_1$. Short question Is $H_1^{K_1}(H_2^{K_2}(X))$ equal to $H_2^{K_2}(H_1^{K_1}(X))$? Is ...
286 views

### Is there any known malleability of scrypt outputs?

The scenario is single-use passphrase-based non-interactive message authentication. The obvious try to do this is to chose a random salt of the appropriate length and send: ...
135 views

### Entropy in natural language texts

I have a couple of related questions: I read about an estimate, ascribed to Turing, of the entropy of English text to be between 0.6 and 1.3 bits per letter. The modern day corpus, including the huge ...
116 views

### Trapdoor implementation

Please refer to this secure index paper. On page#6, a trapdoor is defined as ...
780 views

### AES CBC with fixed or predictable IV, what are the risks?

I am making a call with parameters from application "A" to a web application "B". Parameters are in the query string of the URL. They don't need to be hidden. But I want to be sure that nobody can ...
201 views

### Crypto puzzle as proof of randomness?

I need an untrusted client to generate a random public/private keypair (in particular, an Ed25519 keypair, which can be generated really fast), but I'm only allowed to see the public key. The ...
3k views

### How do I derive the time complexity of encryption and decryption based on modular arithmetic?

I want to calculate the time complexity of two encryption and decryption algorithms. The first one (RSA-like) has the encryption $$C := M^e \bmod N$$ and decryption $$M_P := C^d \bmod N.$$ ...
297 views

### Store hashed email and compare hash values

I have a number of different systems sending me email addresses, but I don't actually need the underlying email, just a hash of the email address. I know I can compare hash values to find matches ...
250 views

### Why would this method of discrete logarithm finding not work?

Say we do know $b$ but not $k$, and are given $g$ such that $g\equiv b^k\pmod p$. And say there exist factors $E = e + m'p$ ($e \equiv b^i \bmod p$) and $F = f + m''p$ ($f \equiv b^j \bmod p$) of $g$. ...
515 views

### Visualization of cryptography

I think CrypTool is great software. And what I find most useful in it is visualization of algorithms such as Caesar, Vigenere, AES, DES. And my question is: does anyone know other tools which are ...
80 views

### Prevent/minimize replay attacks in public message board

Assume we have a public message board where anyone can send a message to. If plain messages are used, anyone can impersonate anyone. The goal is to disallow impersonations. We can use public key ...
198 views

### Is (2^333)-1 a prime number? [closed]

How can I see if $2^{333}-1$ is a prime number? Does this have to do with Mersenne prime numbers ($2^n-1$) ?? Thank you!
362 views

### Decryption a chunk of file with AES

We are having a requirement to store large files (~1GB) encrypted and decrypt them when reading. We are looking to use AES-CTR or AES-GCM mode to encrypt the data. There are scenarios where we want to ...
669 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?
133 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) ...
520 views

### How to best obtain bit sequences from throwing normal dice?

Throwing normal dice, one can get sequences of digits in [0,5]. Which is the best procedure in practice to transform such sequences into bit sequences desired?
105 views

### Question about use of IV in this cipher

Main cipher objective : Generate a keyed CSPRN stream, that does not expose useful information about the state of the CSPRNG, and xor this with the plaintext. To prevent an attacked who could somehow ...
476 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?
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 ...
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 ...
218 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 ...
199 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 ...
174 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 ...
141 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 ...
240 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 ...
586 views

### Is this a correctly formatted PGP session key packet?

RFC 4880 may be full of information, but it can be incredibly vague at times, so im looking for someone who actually knows the answer to this. Given this public key: ...
389 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?
593 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 ...
117 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 ...
159 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 ...
145 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 ...
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. ...
327 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 ...
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, ...
731 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. ...
137 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 ...
2k views

### Using CBC with a fixed IV and a random first plaintext block

What if, instead of using CBC mode in the normal way with a random IV, I used this approach: Use a fixed IV (like a block of 0's). Before encrypting, generate a random block and prepend it to the ...
247 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 ...
185 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 ...
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 ...