This question may seem like a duplicate of some others, namely this one, but even though that question asked when and how to use HMAC, the answers only addressed what HMAC was and why/how it worked.
So, my questions are:
- When is it appropriate to use HMAC? If I'm encrypting files on my local computer? If I'm encrypting and syncing files to a server? If I'm sending messages to Bob? When is it not needed?
- Simply, what is the recommended algorithm for generating a HMAC? I've seen the Wikipedia page, which does something strange with padding, and have read about HMACs in 'Practical Cryptography', where it says a and b are "specified constants" without going into detail about the constraints on these constants.
- The book previously used h(h(m)||m) to prevent length extension attacks, then later defined a different algorithm for HMACs. Why was the former not appropriate for HMAC?
h(h(m)||m)
? There is no key in there? $\endgroup$