# All Questions

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### Digital Certificate Chain Verification

Does a certificate contain the complete chain of all certificates up to the trusted root certificate, or does the program that verifies certificates have to fetch each parent certificate individually ...
368 views

### Is any decent RNG acceptable as a stream cipher?

I have a function f(x,n) that takes a 128-bit key x, and generates n bytes of pseudo-random data. I've tested the output bytes this function for various keys with the NIST RNG testing suite (NIST ...
261 views

### Is a continuous stream of encrypted data embedded in garbage more or less secure than only encrypting the data?

Consider a communication channel that needs to be secure (Encryption can not use full "volume" encryption, since future messages are not known). Would it be better to only transmit encrypted ...
265 views

### Polynomial for secure communication

Can we use a polynomial $P(x)$ to securely communicate ? For example Alice & Bob agree on a degree of a polynomial. The value $x$ & the coeficients are generated from a seed using a hash ...
272 views

### Existing works on pre-computing ElGamal ephermal keys

I was playing around with a problem in e-voting schemes that use additive homomorphic encryption to tally votes, namely that at the end of the day somebody (or somebodies, if the secret material has ...
113 views

### MD5 pre-fixing with an unkown postfix

Is the MD5 prefixing attack still valuable to an attacker if he doesn't know the postfix of the string? For instance, what if the following sanity check was being used: ...
861 views

### AES CCM vs CCMP

Are the terms AES CCM and AES CCMP are equivalent, or is there any technical differences between the two?
415 views

### Cryptographic GUID?

I need a GUID. Really just any number that is likely to be unique. However I prefer not to leak time and other things as a GUID may leak. What should i use as a cryptographic replacement? I was ...
413 views

### Why does SRP-6a use k = H(N, g) instead of the k = 3 in SRP-6?

I've been reading up on the Secure Remote Pasword protocol (SRP). There are a couple different versions of the protocol (the original published version being designated SRP-3, with two subsequent ...
259 views

### Do MD5's weaknesses affect Oplop?

Oplop is an algorithm that generates account-specific passwords from a master password and user-chosen nickname (typically username@domain). From the website: Concatenate the master password with ...
818 views

### Why can't the IV be predictable when its said it doesn't need to be a secret?

I heard multiple times not to reuse the same IV and IV should be random but doesn't need to be secret. I also heard if the IV is something like sequential numbers or something predictable I should ...
191 views

### Is stretching hash several times basically the same as bcrypt?

As I understand it, the main advantage of bcrypt is stretching so it becomes slower to crack overtime. But, is using a "good enough" algorithm (e.g., SHA-2 family) then stretching until it's slow ...
58 views

### Design question for a service that signs messages on behalf of a user

I'm working on a messaging service that lets users author messages and have them signed with an RSA key. The key is used for identity purposes only and can be revoked, so compromising the private key ...
2k views

### Secure private key storage

I'm developing application in Java that has to store RSA keys in software for foreseeable future (that is, at least 10 years). The two most common standards of storing private keys are PKCS12 and JKS ...
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### Are there any systems like SDSI / SPKI that are currently being developed?

SPKI / SDSI look interesting but appear to have fizzled out and died. Are there any modern competitors?
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### Why does .NET's ECB mode implementation append a constant block to my ciphertext?

Consider the following code and output: ...
178 views

### How many different keystreams can I produce with AES in Counter Mode?

I'm using a 64-bit nonce (incremented between the streams) and a 64-bit counter (incremented within a stream) for AES in CTR mode. How many different key streams can I produce with this setup?
159 views

### How is the EAX-mode used in EAP-PSK (RFC 4764)?

According to the specification of RFC 4764, contents in EAP's third message and fourth message are required to be encrypted by AES-128 in EAX mode (also called protected channel). In RFC 4764, the ...
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345 views

### Why x00 is usually avoided in salt?

In .NET Framework, there is a cryptographic Random Number Generator (RNG) provider which enables to generate a cryptographically strong sequence of random bytes. This provider contain, among others, ...
85 views

### inverse of 985 mod(φ60131)

Alright Ive been working on this one for a while I found φ(60131) to be 97294 ½(60131+60131(5)^.5) = 97294 then I worked through the GCD ...
3k views

### Is there a simple hash function that one can compute without a computer?

I am looking for a hash function that is computable by hand (in reasonable time). The function should be at least a little bit secure: There should be no trivial way to find a collision (by hand). For ...
1k views

### Which of these 3 AES 128 symmetric encrypt/decrypt routines is most secure?

I am developing a symmetric en-/decryption routine written in c# for a database containing user-specific, sensitive information. I have narrowed down the implementation to 3 different approaches, ...
196 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 ...
111 views

### MISTY1 Implementation error

I am trying to implement MISTY1. It's RFC, RFC2994, contains psuedocode that I basically copy and pasted into Code::Blocks. However, I managed to mess that up somehow. After 2 days, I still have not ...
567 views

### How to jusify {e,n} is a valid RSA public key?

I have a two set of key {36,77} and {50,117}, How can validate if it is a valid RSA public keys? Is there any simple method?
2k views

### Do I have to recompute all hashes if I change the work factor in bcrypt?

The well-known article about why we should use bcrypt for hashing passwords mentions the work factor - some parameter to the algorithm that determines how long one hashing should be in terms of number ...
167 views

### Encrypt array of int for individual retrieval

I have limited exposure to cryptographic terminology, so please bear with me. My end goal is to encrypt integer IDs, before transmitting them to a web client in a list of search results, in a way ...
164 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, ...
590 views

### Purpose of outer key in HMAC

From what I know, the HMAC constructions has two strength: It's resistant to length extensions Since the key is consumed before the message, the attacker does not know the initial state, preventing ...
360 views

### Does TLS use RC4-drop[n]?

According to many sources, the first few (n) bytes of the RC4 keystream are strongly biased, and therefore should be discarded before using the keystream to encrypt anything; this precaution is ...
621 views

### What is the best way to put a backdoor in an encryption system?

How can you put a backdoor into an encryption algorithm? Are there any techniques that can be used to reduce the time it takes to break a key? I am looking for practical examples encryption schemes ...
268 views

### Can nesting different ciphers with different keys ever decrease security?

Very related to this question but not addressed there. Does the following construction risk introducing any vulnerabilities that render it less secure than using either of its individual components ...
601 views

### Can I jettison MAC if I already have SHA1(M)?

I'm currently using SSL with AES-CBC and HMAC for a file transfer containing string M. Now suppose Alice already knows SHA1(M) (and the adversary does not), and she downloads M from Bob using only ...
249 views

### Are there any multiparty homomorphic encryption schemes?

Are there any multiparty homomorphic encryption schemes ? Most of the literature is about two party schemes . Is there any generalization made for n party ?
384 views

### PRNG taking advantage of very large seed

Can anyone suggest a good (CS)PRNG algorithm that takes advantage of having a very large (ideally arbitrarily large) seed? I'd like to use several kilobytes, perhaps several hundred kilobytes, of ...
446 views

### Adaptive Hash Functions: How to tell how many iterations were used?

If an adaptive hash function like bcrypt or PBKDF2 is used in hashing passwords, the number of iterations used in the hashing process can be configured. For a penetration tester or a malicious ...
143 views

### How to properly format a PGP Message Block?

As sort of a follow up to my (currently) unanswered question, if it is correct, how do i properly calculate and format the packet that actually stores the data being encrypted? I thought I knew what I ...
743 views

### How to securely use Elgamal encryption in libgcrypt?

How secure is libgcrypt's Elgamal implementation of encryption (how different it is from textbook Elgamal), and how can I tweak padding and other preprocessing actions? For example, I know that usign ...
247 views

### Is just a bit of random, “fully random”?

I understand that hashing a datetime is a pseudo-random number, and not good in a security context. But what about hashing a datetime plus a truly-random but constant string (just a string that an ...
798 views

### AES GCM symmetric encryption of data at rest in c#, ciphertext much longer than plaintext

I've written encryption/decryption routines using AES GCM. Code can be found here. I recently realized that the cipher text is longer than I believe it should be. It should add the tag and IV onto ...
597 views

### 128-bit Pseudorandom number Generator

Is there any 128-bit pseudorandom number generator available? I tried the Blum Blum Shub Generator, but I can't produce a 128-bit pseudo-random number. Maybe before I produce a 128-bit pseudorandom ...
330 views

### Diffie hellman key exchange on elliptic curve over an extension field [closed]

I am attempting to do a final semester project where I implement Diffie-Hellman key exchange on an elliptic curve over an extension field (2^256). Can anybody help me to generate the extension field ...
394 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 ...
404 views

### Can we trust digital signatures?

Consider that Alice wants to send a digitally signed message to Bob. Mallory might be able to publish his public key under Alice's name and then impersonate Alice to send a message with an apparently ...
372 views

### Deniability of OTR messaging

I've been looking at the off-the-record messaging protocol, and there is something about its deniability property that seems strange to me. Consider the following scenario: In the course of an ...
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### Is there a way to break this encryption?

I was wondering about making up a simple system to encrypt a file: ...