# All Questions

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### How to use HKDF to combine two keys

I have heard that to combine two keys HKDF is better than using XOR function. But if you look at the HKDF RFC I could not figure out how to use it for concatenating two keys. What I can see is HKDF ...
56 views

### Type A Curves of Supersinglular

In the Type A curve used in Pairing based Cryptography, what is meant by sign0 & sign1 in the expression below? ...
298 views

### Attacks against El Gamal private key

El Gamal encryption involves picking $(p,g,b)$ which is our public key. We compute $b=a^x$ $mod$ $p$. Here, $x$ is the private key which we don't know. What are some efficient and strong algorithms ...
257 views

### What exactly is inside a private key?

May sound stupid to many, but I would like to have some pointers on what exactly is contained inside a private key. I have decent understanding of public/private keys/certificates (have created them ...
268 views

### Encrypt and decrypt data accessible by multiple users within a team

I'm currently working on web services which allows to send and retrieve data. The data belong to a team. A team is composed of users. Each authenticated user can send and retrieve data to/from their ...
162 views

### Difference between implicit signature and explicit signature

In most of time, what I see is explicit signatures such as ElGamal, it's rare to see the implicit signatures. So I wonder why it's rare to be seen? what aspect is it mainly used? what's the ...
81 views

### collision resistant summarizer for long hash values

how we can summarize SHA-256 into shorter values when we for example can't handle more than 128 bits on system? its better just use first 128bit and ignore the rest of bits or split full value and XOR ...
71 views

### PRP representation size

I'm now studying the block cipher substitution-permutation network construction and realized that it uses several small pseudo-random permutations instead a big one for saving memory (or that is one ...
823 views

### How do I calculate the private key in RSA?

Given $n=pq$ for $p,q$ known, I can calculate $\phi(n)$. $e$ is selected such that $\gcd (e,\phi(n)) = 1$. Using this, how do I calculate the RSA private key? Example: I have $n = 35$, with ...
98 views

### Adversary to Any Collision Resistance Hash Function

I'm reading a notion Any Collision Resistance for Hash Functions. In the lecture define a collision finder CF. CF is said to $(t,\epsilon)$-break the family of hash functions $F_K$ if the ...
153 views

### Unblind a RSA blinded signature

I have blinded $m = 16$ with $r= 13$, $e = 7$ and $n = 209$. This resulted in $m' = 464$, which led to a $s' = 8$. Now, I want to unblind this $s'$ by using $s = s' \times r^{-1}$ but im stuck at ...
142 views

### Is encrypting a public key with a symmetric key safe?

Assume the sender wants to share their ephemeral/long-term public key with intended receiver only and both share symmetric key. Is it secure to encrypt the (full/partial) public key (of RSA, ECC) ...
234 views

### What is a Trapdoor in Merkle Signature?

Merkle signature (pag. 40) use than public key (verification key) the root of the Merkle Tree and than private key (to sign) the set of pre-images of the $g(Y_i)$ where $Y_i$ is the verification key ...
103 views

### How does the length of the plaintext affect the cipher strength?

Let the block length 64-bit, 256-bit key, cipher text accordingly - 64 bits. What is the strength of the block cipher, if any unknown attacks, which could reduce its strength. We can only brute force. ...
155 views

### Secure function evaluation

Consider 3 parties, Alice, Bob and Charlie. Suppose each party has a bit as input, i.e. Alice, Bob and Charlie hold $a, b, c \in \{0, 1\}$ respectively. Show how construct a scheme with which ...
306 views

### Can you explain partial private key extract algorithm in certificateless Public key cryptography?

Related to the algorithms of certificate-less Signature approach of Al-Riyami and Paterson… Why is there a need for a "partial private key extract algorithm"? Why should it be needed when ...
129 views

### Security based on PRF

I've seen that there is several kinds of PRF, and sometimes people speak about strong PRFs. When proofs of a protocol or algorithm are given based on the assumption of the use of a PRF, are they ...
233 views

### Why is an IV used in Merkle–Damgård transform?

In Merkle–Damgård transform, a fixed vector IV is chosen at the beginning, and it is hashed together with the first block x1. I wonder why we don't use x1 straightforward, i.e. hash x1 and the next ...
739 views

### Signature algorithm SHA 1-2 with ECDSA

Can someone please explain what key sizes are required for the ECDSA algorithm? I tried a 128 bit EC Key for SHA1withECDSA and it throws an error. However with 256 bit key I could run the algorithm. ...
302 views

### randomly generated key reused with XOR

If I have a long randomly generated key (k), XORed with a message (m), but since the message is longer than the key, there is a chance of reusing the keystream with the same message, but the key is ...
67 views

### Why do authors say conflicting things regarding leak-free stages in their paper?

In this paper the last sentence of the first paragraph in the abstract states: We assume a (necessary) “leak-free” preprocessing stage. But then later on in section 1.4 they say Another ...
719 views

### What's the difference between the long term key and the session keys?

I'm currently studying secret key cryptography, and I've come across the terms "long-term key" and "session key". What's the difference between these two kinds of keys?
125 views

### How do you use the Tiger hash function with GPG?

I've searched Google and the GnuPG documentation and I haven't been able to find an answer. Some pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
3k views

### Can AES use PKCS#5 padding

From What is the difference between PKCS#5 padding and PKCS#7 padding, I understand that PKCS#5 is defined for 8 byte block sizes. Does this rule it out as a padding option for AES since AES has a ...
186 views

### Can you get two unpredictable hashes from the same message with, e.g. SHA1?

I'd like to create a database of questions and answers so that an attacker with access to the database can't obtain either the questions or the answers. If H0 and ...
219 views

### Is there proof to the relation between the gap Diffie-Hellman problem and the the Cha-Cheon signature scheme?

I am trying to prove that: "If the gap Diffie-Hellman problem is easy, then the Cha-Cheon signature scheme will be broken." Can you help me to prove it? Is there any proof to the relation between ...
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166 views

### Security of (cryptographic) padding compared to other methods for blockcompletion for block ciphers

As said in the heading, I want to know how the security of different padding methods, e.g. ANSI X.923, ISO 10126 and PKCS7, is compared to other methods to reach the needed block size, like ciphertext ...
739 views

### Break a simple compression function of a cryptographic hash function

I have a very simple compression function, which looks like this in C++: ...
212 views

### Relationship between Elliptic Curve Discrete Log, Integer Discrete Log, and Integer Factorization

I am trying to look into a relation between the following three problems which are widely used to build public crypto systems: Integer Discrete log Elliptic Curve Discrete log Integer Factorization ...
189 views

### What are the security effects of reusing a public RSA key to encrypt large data by blocks? [duplicate]

I'm trying to figure out a way to do public key encryption on a very large piece of data. For this, I of course want one side to do the encrypting but is unable to decrypt the data, and the other ...
693 views

### How to supply the GCM authentication tag to the OpenSSL command line tools?

I'm using AES-256-GCM for authenticated encryption. In order to decrypt, the ruby OpenSSL library requires an auth_tag parameter (in addition to the key and iv). ...
130 views

### Does it necessarily mean that an RSA moduli generated with poor randomness is not random?

In 2012 a group of researchers collected a large amount of RSA moduli and calculated their greatest common divisor in order to find common factors between them. By finding a common factor they could ...
940 views

### Reduction of Integer factorization to Discrete logarithm problem

I was reading Eric Bach paper entitles "Discrete logarithms and factoring", in which he states the following reductions: solving the integer factorization problem suffices to solve the discrete ...
365 views

### How can Alice prove that a message has not been tampered with?

In terms of the usual suspects. The problem I have is that Alice wants to send Bob a message M, which gives Bob permission to perform some actions. However Alice wants to verify, from time to ...
302 views

### What operations are used in symmetric cryptography and why?

In continuation to Why are bitwise rotations used in cryptography?: what other operations are commonly used in symmetric cryptography? Are there particular operations on numbers that are good for ...
282 views

### modular exponentiation as a one-way-hash

As far as I can tell most one-way hashes apply some iterated encryption algorithm to the input data. What would be the issues with a one-way hash based on some fixed large prime p and a generator g ...