Is $E′(k,m)=E(0^n,m)$ semantically secure?

Question

$(E,D)$ is a (one-time) semantically secure cipher where the message and ciphertext space is $\{0,1\}^n$. $E'(k,m)$ is defined as

$E′(k,m)=E(0^n,m)$

The question is whether $E'(k,m)$ is (one-time) semantically secure?

I thought that the random chosen key $k$ might be $0^n$, therefore the adversary cannot distinguish the messages $m0$ and $m1$ when encrypted with the key $0^n$. Therefore, the scheme is semantically secure. However, the answer states that

To break semantic security, an attacker would ask for the encryption of $0^n$ and $1^n$ and can easily distinguish $EXP(0)$ from $EXP(1)$ because it knows the secret key, namely $0^n$.

Can you elaborate on the answer more? I don't understand how the key is known ("because it knows the secret key") and how we can find that the messages $0^n$ and $1^n$ should be used to break the semantic security (Can we try the whole message space?)?

Answer 1

The algorithm $E'(m)=E'(k,m)=E(0^n,m)$ is defined with a hard-coded key, thus the key is part of the algorithm definition of $E'$.

Because of Kerckhoff's principle we generally assume the attacker to know our algorithm definition.

Because of this, the attacker can just try decrypting the challenge ciphertexts of the eavesdropper security game himself (or try encrypting the challenge messages himself if encryption is deterministic).

The choice of the messages $0^n$ and $1^n$ is entirely arbitrary and any message would suit the purpose here with these two having the advantage of the shortest possible description (instead of something like $0^{n-1}||1$).