# Tag Info

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This specific situation is a central part of the analysis of password hashing functions. Indeed, for hashing a password, we want a function which is: slow in a tunable way; such that the most cost-effective hardware for evaluating many instances of the function is the hardware that the expected defender will use, i.e. a "normal PC". "Cost" here means ...

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Actually, that wikipedia article you mention in your question already answers your question: It is moderately common for companies and sometimes even standards bodies as in the case of the CSS encryption on DVDs – to keep the inner workings of a system secret. Some argue this "security by obscurity" makes the product safer and less vulnerable to attack. ...

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We don't.${}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}$ Moderator note: This answer exists for historical significance, but it does not meet the guidelines for answering questions, so please do not use it as evidence that you can post similar answers here. This answer and its comments are frozen and cannot be changed. More info: meta.

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Are checksums basically toned-down versions of cryptographic hashes? As in: they are supposed to detect errors that occur naturally/randomly as opposed to being designed to prevent a knowledgeable attacker's meticulous engineering feat? That is one way to look at it. However, hash functions have many purposes. They are also meant to be one-way (an attacker ...

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Yes, there are advantages to the attacker. Using a well vetted encryption algorithm provides a better assurance of security. There may be cryptographic algorithm flaws and/or coding mistakes. As noted, relying on the algorithm being private just adds a layer of false security.

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We don't ever know, in the information theory sense, that a crypto algorithm won't fail suddenly. If we ever knew that, we'd quit using it. However, it has been shown that when a crypto algorithm fails, it has a strong tendency to fail according to a two-step process: Most crypto algorithms fail quickly in the initial analysis phase, as we apply a pile of ...

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In order to design and analyze a cipher, we have to establish what a cipher is supposed to accomplish. Put simply, we would like to be able to transform information in such a way that only those who are authorized may perform or invert the transformation. We can refer to this transformation as "encryption". Unauthorized parties may exist that should not be ...

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Well, cryptographers have been contemplating a post-quantum world for some time now. Quantum computing, although in its infancy as far as real-life computers go, has been studied in a theoretical sense for a quite a while. Shor's algorithm was published 19 years ago; Grover's, 17 years ago. These are the two most-famous quantum algorithms, I think, but the ...

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The distinction is that ECDSA solves a problem that HMAC does not. If you need that problem solved, then you need to do ECDSA rather than HMAC; if you do not, then HMAC works just as well (and is a lot cheaper). With HMAC, here is what we have: we have an authenticator that has a secret key. It takes a message, and gives that (and the secret key) to the ...

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The functions considered are binary functions of 3 bits to 1 bit (extended to bit vectors, that is bitwise functions). There are $2^{(2^3)}=256$ such functions. All the functions considered are balanced; that is, there is an equal number of input combinations for which the function outputs 0 and for which the function outputs 1. That reduces the number of ...

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I've simplified the Alice random bytes to ARB and Bob random bytes to BRB. Then the protocol follows as; Alice knows $key$ and $ARB$ and sends $$C_1 = key \oplus ARB$$ Bob knows $C_1$ and $BRB$ and sends $$C_2 = C_1 \oplus BRB = key \oplus ARB \oplus BRB$$ Alice calculates $C_2 \oplus key \oplus ARB = key \oplus key \oplus ARB \oplus BRB = BRB$ Alice knows $... 34 I restrict to hash functions$H$with an output of some fixed size$n\ge1$bit(s), accepting as input some strings, including all$n$-bit strings; MD5 (resp. SHA-1, SHA-256) is an example of such function for$n=128$(resp.$n=160$,$n=256$). Whether there exists a solution to$H(x)=x$depends on the particular hash function. If$H$is a random function (as ... 34 This doesn't add new security as much as it just shifts it. Encryption algorithms are carefully studied. Hmm... I didn't make that emphatic enough. Encryption algorithms are C A R E F U L L Y studied. There. That's better. There are all sorts of tiny nuances to be had when designing an algorithm. A famous example were some of the S-Boxes in DES which ... 33 Cryptography itself cannot solve this problem. This problem has long been studied in the field of copyright management to prevent piracy. The main issue is that it is difficult to keep a state in the ciphertext that records how many times the ciphertext has been decrypted. Even if you can, there is no way in practice to prevent someone reverting the state. ... 31 Most encryption is based heavily on number theory, most of it being abstract algebra. Calculus and trigonometry isn't heavily used. Additionally, other subjects should be understood well; specifically probability (including basic combinatorics), information theory, and asymptotic analysis of algorithms. There's also more math that's worth knowing to be a ... 30 Yes, if you hash the same input with the same function, you will always get the same result. This follows from the fact that it is a hash-function. By definition a function is a relation between a set of inputs and a set of permissible outputs with the property that each input is related to exactly one output. In practice there is no seed involved in ... 29 There is no such thing as a clearly defined, unambiguous, optimal learning path. However, drawing from my own experience, I would suggest tackling the following in due sequence: Linear cryptanalysis: start with Matsui's article, implement your own DES, and try it out on a reduced version (e.g. 8 rounds instead of the full 16). You might also want to have a ... 28 They are both linear, but in different algebraic Groups. Which is to say, xor is linear in any finite field of characteristic 2, while 'ordinary' addition is linear in the infinite field of the Real numbers. Addition modulo$n$(which is more cryptologically significant than addition over the Reals) is also a linear operation, but in the ring of integers$\...

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...why go through the trouble of creating a cipher in the first place? Why not simply use a ridiculously long key, if you're gonna create a cipher that only takes as long as an exhaustive key search anyway? Designing a cipher is significantly less hassle then using a ridiculously long key. Designing a cipher only needs to be done once by a competent ...

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It's a good question. As pg1989 said, this is the basis behind stream ciphers, which are very fast in practice. I thought I'd quickly expand upon your statement that "the one-time pad is the perfect cipher and impossible to crack." This is true, in a sense, but it's worth pointing out that sometimes an attacker wants to do something simpler than "cracking" ...

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I sent an email to Ron Rivest and got an answer back. The digits of $\pi$ are used as a sort of random number generator that is used in the Durstenfeld shuffle (see also Knuth vol 3, sec 3.4.2). Below is some pseudocode adapted from the description and code he sent me. S = [0, 1, ..., 255] digits_Pi = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, ...] # the digits of pi def rand(n)...

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How are these (magic) numbers chosen? It heavily depends on what algorithm and which of its magic numbers. They seldom are entirely arbitrary. In AES, it is often taken the lowest value such that a certain mathematical property holds, with that property (demonstrably or plausibly) working towards security. In other algorithms, it could be values that pre-...

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Observation: An individual 1-byte pearson hash behaves like an 8 bit block cipher, encrypting the initial state using the message as key. This means that given a fixed message, each possible initial state produces a different output. This implies that a combined hash will never contain duplicate bytes. Without this property a hash would forget about the ...

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Braid cryptography? Knapsack cryptosystems, like Nasako–Murikami? Lattice-based cryptography tends to work in polynomial rings or modules with coefficients in finite fields, but whose higher-level structure is not a field. Also: don't forget RSA! RSA works in a ring, not a field.

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The key size is simply the amount of bits in the key. With AES, like most modern block ciphers, the key size directly relates to the strength of the key / algorithm. The higher the stronger. Since all bits are used, there are $2^{\mathit{klen}}$ possible keys, taking $2^{\frac{\mathit{klen}}{2}}$ operations to brute force on average. For AES the internal key ...

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CBC does not perform authentication This property makes it less suitable for places where authentication is required, basically any transport protocol. TLS uses CBC, but by default performs authentication over the plain text instead of the ciphertext, which opened up a host of attacks. CBC can be used here, but it is error prone and may require an ...

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You have clarified the question as asking about whether replacing ShiftRows with a random byte permutation would strengthen AES against differential attacks. It would not. ShiftRows and MixColumns were carefully selected to work in tandem, such that every byte affects every other byte in the state within just two rounds. MixColumns ensures that every ...

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