# All Questions

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### If $G'(s)=G(s0^{|s|})$ and $G$ is a PRNG, is $G'$ necessarily a PRNG? [closed]

I argue it is because there should be no more correlation between the outputs $G(s0^{|s|})$ than between the outputs $G(s)$. Thus we can say the $G'(s)$ is a PRNG that satisfies $|G'(s)| \geq 4|s|$. ...
489 views

### My SSH server public key is 2048 bits, but my account's private key is 4096. What is my effective security?

My SSH server has a 2048-bit public key. But my private key, for clients to login, is 4096-bit. In this case, do I have the brute force protection of 2048 or 4096 bits? My worry is that someone ...
139 views

### Why does DSS have such formulas?

I've learnt the formulas needed for the DSA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Signature_Algorithm). But most importantly, I don't quite understand what represents those formulas and why they are ...
218 views

### Why use CBC-MAC? Why not just apply hash function on the whole message?

Why not just apply hash function on the whole message? Why convert that message into blocks and hash those blocks? To avoid collisions?
110 views

### No Birthday Attack to TCR

I'm reading the paper “Collision-Resistant Hashing? Towards Making UOWHFs Practical” , which compared TCR (Target Collision Resistant) and ACR (Any collision Resistant). It says we wish to stress ...
1k views

### Does ssl_rsa_with_rc4_128_md5 have known weaknesses?

My bank's website uses HTTPS with the cipher suite ssl_rsa_with_rc4_128_md5. What are the known weaknesses of this suite? Do they have a practical impact for ...
218 views

### Proving HMAC collision probability bounds?

Could someone point to results or proofs about the probability of $$HMAC(k, m_1) = HMAC (k, m_2)$$ assuming the underlying hash function is SHA-256? Would those probabilities be higher/lower if $m_1$ ...
178 views

### Encrypting and Decrypting a 19-digits long BigInteger

How can I take a maximum 19-digits long BigInteger and encrypt it with the following rules: The result must be based on digits and lower-case English letters ...
177 views

### Is solving a modular linear equation a hard problem when the coefficient is not an invertible element?

Assume that we have a linear equation like this: $$ax=b \pmod n$$ when $x$ is the unknown, and $a$ is not an invertible element in $n$. is finding $x$ a hard problem? (by solving I mean finding an ...
374 views

### Properties of Ideal Straight P-Boxes

What properties should an ideal straight P-Box exhibit?
104 views

### AES 128bit round level recommendation

we don't want change standard just after every attack, now for AES 128bit blocks i think 16 round is secure, but what is best round amount ? we had attack for 7 round then 10 round and it going so on ...
472 views

### Is the AES encryption scheme CPA secure?

Give a 256 bit key space and 128 message space would AES block cipher as the encryption scheme be CPA secure?
160 views

### Pseudo-random Number generation for Passwords

I am looking for a good pseudo-random number generation algorithm for passwords. My scenario is that I have to generate 5K pseudo-random bits from a user-supplied password (6 characters). What are ...
252 views

### Should I use md5 for my new application?

MD5 is a very fast hash and its output is short and easy to store. Should I use it for my non-security-sensitive application? I don't think so, but I can't seem to convince anyone else that this is ...
4k 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 ...
275 views

### Factoring a polynomial over a GF [closed]

I have the following question: What polynomial, when factored over the field $GF (2^8)$ based on the irreducible polynomial that is used in Rijndael, will factor into all the polynomials in the ...
43 views

### What happens when cbc+hmac get a replay attack?

If it use AES-CBC and HMAC-SHA256 for message send online, and someone try to replay attack on this message. Can the attack be successful? what will be happen when attacking?
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### Why do we need to compute message digest of a message first while signing it?

Why it is more efficient to compute a message digest of message and digitally sign it then, rather than sign the message directly?
102 views

### Is it possible to decrypt the entire message with one half of the key in this example?

In this scheme, a 256 bit key is split into two 128 bit sub-keys. Message blocks are 256 bits and are also split into two sub-blocks. Before encryption, each sub-block is xor'd with it's partner and ...
68 views

### Cracking secret key of a MD5 hash?

I have a MD5 hash which is obtained by hashing certain strings appended by a pipe character ( | ). (I know the values of these) A secret key is added as a suffix to this (I don't know the secret key). ...
123 views

### What is more secure, a ciphertext encrypted with AES-256 or encrypted with 3 different AES-128 keys?

Or better yet, is encrypting a block with 2 AES-128 keys just as secure as encrypting a block with 1 AES-256 key? By the way, I've only recently been learning cryptography stuff; I've made working ...
53 views

### The use of the term “sound” in cryptography [closed]

We often see the term "sound" in cryptography. What is the sense of this word ? Thank you.
80 views

### Showing that $2^{N-1}\equiv1\pmod N$ when $N=2^p-1$ for prime $p$

I got this question on a previous exam and I got it wrong. I've gone back through it several times since then, but I can't seem to get it. I would really like to know how to do it, so if someone could ...
61 views

### How to figure out the size of the output of a cryptographic checksum function

There is such a putting in Bishop's Introduction to computer security, page 118 as following: Definition 8–2. A cryptographic checksum function (also called a strong hash function or a strong ...
63 views

### public key certificate on TLS/SSL

Currently I am working on a public key certificate. I got a question: Why is a public key certificate needed for TLS/SSL? Wouldn't TLS/SSL itself is enough? What is the role of the certificate?
66 views

### Security of chameleon hash functions

With the knowledge of the trapdoor, we are able to compute the same digest for differents messages. I've read that given two messages $m$, $m'$ and two numbers $r$, $r'$ such that ...
120 views

### Elliptic curve parameters

What's the meaning of 160 bit Curve in Elliptic curve ? or 192 or 224 or 256 and etc. And What is the standard for selecting this number of bit ? why they don't say 100 bit curve?
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### Does brute force attack use the program that created the ciphertext?

I've read several articles about brute force cryptanalytic attacks, but none explicitly say what algorithm is being run for each attempt, nor what criteria is used to declare an attempt a success or a ...
57 views

### Is elliptic curve point multiplication semantically secure?

Is elliptic curve point multiplication semantically secure? I'd like to know if there are some sets of elliptic curve parameters (e.g. NIST curves) that are proved to be semantically secure or that ...
76 views

### Pollard's Rho - Constructing the random function

Suppose we are aiming to solve the discrete logarithm problem $\alpha^x=\beta$ in some cyclic group $G=<\alpha>$. Then we are looking for a (uniformly) random sequence of elements of the form ...
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### How to calculate kinv from the given k value

I am implementing an ECDSA NIST test vectors verification application. The test vectors are taken from http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cavp/#09. One of the test vectors is given below: ...
74 views

### Perfectly secure shift cipher

Prove that if only one character is encrypted using a shift cipher, then the shift cipher is perfectly secure. I want to show that $P(P=p | C=c)=P(P=p)$. But I don't know how to relate. Can anyone ...
43 views

### Detect desynchronization in HOTP authentication [duplicate]

In HOTP authentication, is there a way for a system to detect that the token has been desynchronized? If so how does it know that the OTP was generated from a desynchronized (but valid) token and is ...
106 views

### Elliptic curve group over a prime finite field $F_p$

If $p$ is a big prime, and the elliptic curve $E$ is defined over $F_p$ by the equation $y^2=x^3+ax+b$ where $a,b\in F_p$. The point on $E/F_p$ together with the infinite point $\mathcal{O}$ form a ...
519 views

### In public key cryptography, how many keys are required for secure communication between n parties?

In public key cryptography, how many keys are required for secure communication between n parties? In my view the answer should be $n^2$. Reason: There are ‘$n$’ Parties. Every Party has One (1) ...
86 views

### How can I process data within a cloud securely?

I'm new to programming and I'm getting ready to design a proof of concept for an app that I'm thinking of building. Problem is I'm a complete noob to cryptography and need a little nudge to point me ...
52 views

### Is the product of two primes only factorisable by those two primes? [closed]

The question is as per the subject line. Does the fundamental theorem of arithmetic imply (prove?) that if I multiply two primes, then those two primes are the only factors of the product? I.e. 17 x ...
158 views

### How can we prove that two discrete logarithms are equal?

Suppose there are two elements $a = g^x$ and $b = h^x$, where $g$ and $h$ are generators in $Z^*_p$ and $p$ is a large prime. How can we prove that $a$ and $b$ have the same discrete logarithms with ...
105 views

### IV = Filename XOR CipherKey?

i want to encrypt transparently using Rijndael. So this is, what I thought of and I would like to have an opinion from "Experts" whether this will harm encryption strenght. I am using chunks of 1MB ...
140 views

### Thoughts on secure hashing and the “mds” algorithm

Almost a decade ago Raymond Chen blogged [1] about the "hash reset attack" cautioning developers to record the content length in addition to the message digest. Recently I came up with a variation on ...
499 views

### Decrypt AES-128 with key file but missing IV? [duplicate]

I want to decrypt a file that has been encrypted using AES-128 in CBC mode using OpenSSL. I got the “.key” file – which is 32 digits – but when I try to decrypt with OpenSSL, the program asks me for ...
138 views

### HKDF vs TLS PRF. Which of the one is better? [closed]

Which of the one (HKDF or TLS1.1+ PRF) is more secure and why?
154 views

### AES CBC MAC splicing attack

I'm trying to implement AES CBC MAC splicing attack in Python, the idea is: given a message M, its tag Tm (MAC(M) = T), a new message N and its tag Tn we build a message such as: M||N = (M1, ..., Mn, ...
2k views

### AES Algorithm processing time in Arduino vs Raspberry Pi

The Arduino employs an 8-bit ATmega series microcontroller whereas the Raspberry Pi is based around a 32-bit ARM processor, and the Arduino is typically clocked at between 8-16MHz and with 2-8kB of ...
758 views

### ECC key size and signature size

My understanding of ECDSA signature length is that it depends on the key size. So for instance, if a "prime256v1" is used, the signature length will be 64 because (n/8)*2 and for "secp384r1" it will ...
271 views

### Convert a number to sha-1

I have a task to find a the message for which the SHA-1 hash's last 11 symbols in hexadecimal presentation corresponds to an 11-digit number. I have been given the following example solution: For ...
100 views

### Explicit Key SHA-1

I'm reading “Collision-Resistant Hashing? Towards Making UOWHFs Practical” and in the Section 2 it says: Hash functions like MD5 or SHA-1 have no explicit key. But no notion of ...
401 views

### Diffie-Hellman Secret Exponent Size and Shared Secret Usage [closed]

I'm developing my own protocol and I'll use Diffie-Hellman to achieve PFS. It will work in this way: The symmetric encryption algorithm will be AES_256_CBC. The DH parameters will be: P: a 2048-bit ...
Consider a secure modern block cipher like AES/Serpent/Twofish. I hear everyone say that the complexity is $2^{128}$ for a 128 block cipher. But isn't the weak link the actual hashed and salted ...