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How can padding be disambiguated from data, when encrypting using a block cipher?

I'm by no means an expert in cryptography, but rather a programmer with a keen interest.

Suppose, I've X bytes of data, message M, that I want to encrypt using an N-byte block cipher, where N >> X.

How can M be padded using N-X bytes of padding O, such that there would be no ambiguity between decrypting the padded message M´ and the (concatenated) message M|O?

How is this done in practice? Normally, when encrypting using a block cipher, I don't see a header being output describing the original length of the message M?

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The usual padding for block ciphers ("PKCS#7 padding") is not a sequence of zeroes, but a sequence of P = N - (X % N) bytes each with value P.

If the message is a multiple of the block size, then a full block of padding is added (where each byte value is the block size).

For example, is the message is 15-byte long and the block size is 16 bytes, than one byte of padding will be added, and the value of the byte is 1. If the message is 14-byte long, two bytes with value 2 will be added. If the message is 16-byte long, sixteen bytes with value 16 will be added.

With these rules, the padding is unambiguous.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks. But why M|1? And what if the block size is >= 256 bits :-) ? Is your padding scheme the one used for all block ciphers, like AES? $\endgroup$ – Shuzheng Aug 12 at 11:39
  • $\begingroup$ I'm assuming there needs to be 1 byte of padding, thus that padding byte will have value 1. Yes, that doesn't work for block sizes larger than 256 bytes, but most block ciphers have 16-byte block sizes. And yes, this is the PKCS#7 padding, also called PKCS#5 padding $\endgroup$ – Conrado Aug 12 at 11:54
  • $\begingroup$ Ohh, nice - I was assuming N-X bytes of padding, nvm. Is the padding scheme for AES (512 bits) similar? $\endgroup$ – Shuzheng Aug 12 at 11:55
  • $\begingroup$ @Shuzheng it's not exactly N-X, it's the smaller number larger than zero that makes the result size a multiple of the block size. AES has 128-bit block size (e.g. 16 bytes), and it indeed works as described $\endgroup$ – Conrado Aug 12 at 11:58
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, but here N is the block size in bytes, while X is the length of the message to be encrypted. Then indeed, N-X bytes of padding is needed, right? What do you mean by "it's the smaller number larger than..."? $\endgroup$ – Shuzheng Aug 12 at 12:56

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