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6

The capacity of AES in terms of file encryption is practically unlimited for the time being, especially in OFB or CTR mode. An 8 GB file comprises short of $2^{29}$ 128-bit AES blocks. If one uses CBC or OFB CFB mode, odds of a collision (that is, the same block appearing in ciphertext, which reveals 128 bit worth of potentially usable information about the ...


6

If you mean how much data can safely be encrypted by AES with a single key (and IV), AES is designed to encrypt up to $2^{64}$ blocks of data before becoming susceptible to certain statistical attacks (in particular distinguishing the encrypted file from truly random data), because of its 128-bit block size. 8GB (= $2^{36}$ bits = $2^{29}$ blocks) is quite ...


5

The question has morphed over time. I am answering the following. So to be sure, with DES, only when you encrypt something twice with a weak key. You get the back the original plaintext? That is correct as that is the definition of a DES weak key, a key for which encryption and decryption have the same effect. So when using DES in OFB mode with a ...


4

The properties that an IV must meet are strongly dependent on the mode that the IV is be used in. Some modes require unpredictability; other modes don't care about unpredictability but require uniqueness. As for OFB mode, it's in the 'don't care about unpredictability, but require uniqueness' camp. In particular, as long as you never reuse an IV, and you ...


4

The choice or PRNG doesn't really matter much, as long as it's a decent one. I wouldn't use BBS because it's slow, and the security proof isn't too useful. The interesting question is rather, how to seed the PRNG with sufficient entropy. You need a sufficient amount of data that an attacker can't predict. I strongly recommend not doing this yourself, but to ...


3

No, it is not a good idea to use the Blum Blum Shub Generator to generate an Initialization Vector for a block cipher operated in OFB mode. In this usage, one needs that the IV has negligible chance to match an earlier IV used with the same key. The exact requirement is that the IV has negligible chance to match an input to the block cipher used in ...


3

Well, if the block cipher is modeled as a random $N$ bit permutation (that is, each permutation from the set of $2^N$ bit patterns to itself is equally probable), then the answer is really quite easy (and this answer is exact): the probability that we will repeat a block within $M$ outputs is precisely $(M-1) 2^{-N}$ (for $0 < M \le 2^N+1$). The ...


2

An important point for both the one-time pad as well as other (synchronous) stream ciphers is: don't reuse your key stream. For the one-time pad, the key stream is the key itself, so this means: don't use a key twice. The two-times-pad is broken. For OFB and other stream ciphers with an initialization vector (IV), the key stream is decided by both key and ...


2

OFB is a method of converting a block cipher, like AES or DES, into a stream cipher. Because One Time Pad is theoretically secure (though impractical) people often try to make stream ciphers that try to approximate one time pad. OFB is a way of taking a block cipher to try to emulate the security you get from one time pad. A key distinction is that OTP is ...


2

ECB mode is a deterministic encryption, instead in OFB if the initial vector is random choosed (and of course published with the cryptogram) is a random encryption. What's the matter with det.enc.? The problem is that if you encoded two time the same message you are going to get two time the same chipertext, so the adversary can understand that you said the ...


1

A quick follow up, there is a problem with using DES in OFB mode when you are not using the full feedback register. The generated keystream will become cyclic with on average a period of the order $2^{32}$ instead of $2^{64}$. See (R.R. Jueneman, “Analysis of certain aspects of Output Feedback Mode,” Advances in Cryptology, Proceedings Crypto’82, D. ...


1

Wikipedia has an excellent visual demonstration of the insecurity of ECB mode when applied to (potentially) repetitive data: Here, the first picture on the left shows a simple cartoon image (Tux the Penguin). The second image is the same, but with the (raw, uncompressed RGB) image data encrypted using ECB mode. While details of the image are ...



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