All Questions

125 views

how does https key get shared?

I am only a beginner and doesn't know much about https. I have heard that they uses somekind of a key and is shared between them. If an attacker wishes to attack could he be able to capturebthe key ...
99 views

constructing QR-like one way function

I am wondering whether the following form is a one way function with collision resistance: $$ax^2+by^2 \mod p$$ where $a$ and $b$ are given, and $p$ is a prime number. Since the QR (quadratic ...
173 views

Tor's integrity verification system?

I am trying to understand the design of Tor(onion router). I am reading the original paper on the 2nd generation onion routing system. Where, under integrity checking on streams, they say, "When Alice ...
240 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 ...
375 views

How practical is proxy re-encryption for AES?

In proxy re-encryption schemes, a proxy is given special information that allows it to translate a ciphertext under one key into a ciphertext of the same message under a different key. How ...
221 views

Preimage resistance hash in digital signature

I'm studying about preimage resistance property of the hash functions. In particularly I'm reading as the missing of this property can be fatal in digital signatures that use RSA. Further details: ...
116 views

Differential privacy definition

Differential privacy defines "privacy" of a mechanism $A$ as the "closeness" of the two distribution $Pr[A(D) \in S]$ and $Pr[A(D') \in S]$ where $D,D'$ differ in one element. And the distance between ...
127 views

What kind of cryptography should i use?

I have a trusted third part A that issues an access token (xml file) to an untrusted client C that uses this token to log into an untrusted server S and access to the authorized files. I want only ...
439 views

Smart Card Basics

I want to implement some of the basic encryption algorithms on smart card, could any body guide me how to program a smart card, which tools (hardware and software) I should have, and if these tools ...
443 views

When making public key fingerprints - is a sha1 hash still a good idea?

I'm thinking about trying to save some space (and readability) when referencing 2k and 4k public keys (millions of them) by storing the fingerprint in some places instead of the full public key. ...
69 views

Why does the server in S/KEY authentication only store a single password?

I've been reading about the S/KEY One-Time Password system on wikipedia here and was wondering why the server only stores a single password and not the list of one-time passwords like the client does. ...
342 views

Key sizes for discrete logarithm based methods

I have a question regarding the key generation process of methods that are based on the discrete logarithm problem. This site gives some good insights, but I don't fully grasp it I think: ...
183 views

Elliptic Curve is DH function or PKI?

can we reuse same ECC key on TLS for long terms or it must be used just once? (i mean can we use ECC like RSA?) is there patent free ECC implementation ?
83 views

I am read this paragraph and I have a doubt. "An adversary to PKC $\Pi$ is given by two probabilistic polynomial time algorithms, $A = (A1; A2)$. In the first stage, the "find" stage, the ...
77 views

What does “securely realize” mean?

I was wondering what "securely realizes" means. I see this in some cryptographic papers but I don't know what it means for a protocol to "securely realize" a function $F$. Is it just a fancy way of ...
2k views

Looking at the first step of AES encryption I see that we XOR the key with the plaintext block. Why is the actual key involved at all, why not just use the round keys derived from the key schedule?
126 views

Security relevance of random factor in Paillier

In the Paillier cryptosystem [1] the encryption of $m \in \mathbb{Z}_N$ with randomness $r \in \mathbb{Z}_n^*$ is $c = g^m r^n \bmod{n^2}$. The additive-homomorphic property of the system shows that ...
711 views

What goals is homomorphic encryption aiming to solve?

As I understand from this article about homomorphic encryption, it mainly aims to enhance the security of cloud computing. We should be able to encrypt data and send it to the cloud. After it is send, ...
977 views

Fastest multiplication algorithm for efficient exponentiation in C++?

First I apologize if this question is better tailored for SO, but since I'm using the method for crypto stuff, I thought I'd ask anybody that might know here. Karatsuba algorithm does a pretty good ...
210 views

Is the following key stretching algorithm as memory hard as I think it is?

I'm having some fun designing a key stretching algorithm that can be implemented in pure Python. It's built entirely out of the standard library's hash functions in an attempt to at least wrest some ...
325 views

Measuring Shannon's diffusion

Shannon's idea of diffusion is fundamental to cryptography. Besides being a descriptive idea, is there any work on measuring or expressing it? Saying something like "System A has more diffusion than ...
197 views

Request for 1024-bit primes $p$ , subgroup $q$ and subgroup generator $g$

I need to find a prime $p$ of $1024$ bits with a $160$ bit sub group size $q$, such that $q|p-1$ , and $g$ is the generator of the sub group size $q$. I'm looking for the numeric values of $p$ , $q$ ...
330 views

What are some different cryptography methods?

Some of the most effective cryptography methods and algorithms are based of factoring large prime numbers (e.g. RSA). I'm curious whether there are some other cryptography methods. Somethings that is ...
761 views

Kryptos : K2. What is the origin of the “abscissa” keyword?

I'm studying the Kryptos sculpture with its cryptographic puzzles K1 to K4. Similar to the "palimsest" keyword for K1, the keyword "abscissa" for K2 was determined by brute-force. To better ...
274 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 ...
161 views

inverse element in Paillier cryptosystem

As I know, in Paillier cryptosystem, the encryption $c$ of a message $m$ is calculated as $c=g^m r^n \bmod n^2$. Now, I am wondering if I can derive $g^m \bmod n^2$ given that I know $c$, $r$, and ...
766 views

Weakness in using only one RSA key pair for two-way communication?

In Alice/Bob/Cindy terms (EDIT: and with a little more detail): Alice and Bob have each securely obtained one key of an RSA keypair from a trusted third party. Alice has one key ($e$ and $n$), Bob ...
2k views

How does a client verify a server certificate?

As far as I know, when I request a certificate from Verisign (for example), and after they approved that me is me, they create a certificate (for me) which contains the digital signature and public ...
1k views

Blowfish: hex digits of pi used for s-boxes?

Preface: here is the official site for the Blowfish algorithm: http://www.schneier.com/blowfish.html The Blowfish algorithm uses an s-box, which consists of hex digits of pi (found here: ...
334 views

How can I prove in zero knowldege that an ElGamal shuffle is correct for a special setting? [closed]

In a special ElGamal encryption scheme, every user has an ElGamal encryption key-pair using the same cyclic group $G$ and generator $g$. The system has a special function :  ...
296 views

Real world use cases of Multi Party Computation

Most of the research papers give imaginary applications of multi party computation. Either they talk about millionare's problem or two or more corporates willing to compute some Intrustion detection ...
106 views

Is secure remote snap possible?

Scenario: We have a central server $S$. We have a number of peripheral servers $P_i$ We have some individuals $U_j$ A given individual may be "known" to one or more peripheral servers. Each ...
113 views

Conditional entropy

Suppose I have a file with random binary strings of the same length in each line. If I'm computing the conditional entropy $H(Y|X)$ where $Y$ is the variable string of fixed length $l$ which is ...
108 views

How to hide bit frequency of the inter-packet delays covert channel?

I encode a hidden message as different delays between packets of another data stream. My implementation now is that for each bit, if the bit is 0, a inter-packet ...
412 views

Can we construct fully homomorphic encryption scheme based on non-circuit approach?

At present, all FHE scheme are be constructed based on circuit approach. Can we construct fully homomorphic encryption scheme based on non-circuit approach? Is Polly cracker non-circuit approach ?
339 views

Can iterated key expansion in Blowfish slow down bruteforce attacks on small key sizes?

Suppose I have to use 64-bit keys for encryption (e.g. to comply with export restrictions). For this question, assume this key is truly random, and the encryption algorithm is Blowfish. Blowfish key ...
590 views

Cryptanalysing Affine cipher

I am trying to cryptanalyse a cipher–text encrypted by Affine cipher. The encryption formula is: $c = f(x) = (ax+b)\bmod m$, where $a$ and $b$ are unknown constants; $x$ is a plain-text symbol, and ...
131 views

Random decomposition of symmetric key

Considering a symmetric cipher (i.e : AES in counter mode), is it possible for any given key to be randomly decomposed into other keys without knowing the message or the ciphertext, such as : ...
543 views

What would be the most effective way to brute force a 16 char AES key?

I have a file that is encrypted in AES using a 16 char string. The string is (a-zA-Z0-9) and .,?!. Also, it only contains words ...
426 views

Other than brute force, are there any attacks on Threefish-512 using only a single known plaintext block?

As per title, other than brute force, are there any attacks on Threefish-512 using only a single plaintext block? Are there any attacks like this in any other cipher?
413 views

RC4 S-Box and Keystream

I'm studying the RC4 algorithm and I have the following questions: On all questions assume that an expanded (2048-bit) key is used, and that the first 4096 bytes of the KeystreamIm are discarded. ...
575 views

OpenPGP Public-Key Encrypted Session Key Packet Key ID generation

Im probably just not reading something again, but: RFC 4880 says that a OpenPGP Public-Key Encrypted Session Key Packet (tag 1) is made up of ...
540 views

Does the MixColumns step come before or after AddRoundKey in AES decryption?

I found these images depicting the AES decryption process: In the first image, the MixColumns step comes before the AddRoundKey step, while in the second image, the AddRoundKey will come before ...
110 views

Determine complexity of a SAT problem

Is there a standard way to determine a complexity of the specified SAT problem? I'm researching algebraic cryptanalysis and came to solving multivariate quadratic equation systems using CryptoMiniSat. ...
157 views

Is it possible take a piece of data in secret?

I want something like this, but in a digital sense: You and others walk into a room. Everyone knows who each of you are and everyone is doing their best to figure out what piece of paper each ...
325 views

Which encodings have |encoding key| >> |decoding key|?

I'm looking for an encoding scheme that requires a very large encoding key E (>10MB) and suffices with a relatively small decoding key ...
206 views

Block ordering and security in a MAC?

To authenticate a message $m = m_1 \,\|\, \dots \,\|\,m_n$ the tag $t := F_k(r) \oplus F_k(m_1) \oplus \dotsb \oplus F_k(m_n)$ is used, where r is uniform random number $(0,1)^n$ and $m=(0,1)^n$. Even ...
246 views

Is the SILC protocol still used? [closed]

I'm looking into implementing a private SILC server for friends (and possibly their friends). And after visiting the Wikipedia entry for SILC protocol, it seems all the official pages linked at the ...