## Top new questions this week:

### Why is the whole initial state used in the final addition of Salsa20 and ChaCha?

Both Salsa20 and ChaCha basically work like this: Put the key, the nonce, the sequence number and a constant into a 4x4 matrix of 32-bit words. Transform the matrix invertibly with a number of ARX ...

algorithm-design salsa20 chacha

### Attacks on elliptic-curve based cryptosystems through solving the Decisional Diffie-Hellman Problem with the Weil Pairing

Are there any examples of practical attacks on cryptosystems set over elliptic curves which utilize the easiness of DDH for certain choices of curves $E(\textbf{F}_q)$, and as such their lack of ...

elliptic-curves semantic-security

### What are the practical implications of ciphertext distinguishability?

Commonly there are four ways to "break" a secrecy-focused cryptosystem: Recover the secret key Recover the message Distinguish an encryption from random noise Distinguish the encryption of two ...

cryptanalysis chosen-plaintext-attack chosen-ciphertext-attack

### Example: pre-image resistance to second pre-image resistance

It is possible to convert a pre-image resistant function $f:\{0,1\}^{n}\rightarrow \{0,1\}^{n}$ to a second-preimage resistant function? I am thinking to use a pseudo-random generator and construct ...

preimage-resistance

### Signature and hash function properties

I understand the need for the hash function to be collision resistant and second pre-image resistant. For what reason, exactly, does a hash function need to be pre-image resistant? If this property ...

hash signature preimage-resistance

### Is there a signature scheme for the Cramer-Shoup cryptosystem?

I have a project that I have to use cryptosystem and signature scheme for it. I've read about Cramer-Shoup cryptosystem and I want to use it since it is more secure the ElGamal cryptosystem, but, I ...

encryption authentication

What is the advantage of AEAD ciphers? Why is the TLS working group pushing for them? I thought modern cipher suites require SHA256 for authentication. What advantage is there to including Poly1305?

tls

## Greatest hits from previous weeks:

### What is safer: ZipCrypto or AES-256?

Like in title: which one of these encryption methods (ZipCrypto, AES-256) is more secure and why? I am asking about it because I'd like to know which should be preferred when compressing files with ...

aes file-encryption compression

### How can I use SSL/TLS with Perfect Forward Secrecy?

I'm new to the field of cryptography, but I want to make the web a better web by setting up the sites that I host with Perfect Forward Secrecy. I have a list of questions regarding the setup of ...

elliptic-curves diffie-hellman tls forward-secrecy

### Prove that certain amount of data was stored

I'm looking for a way to prove that a certain amount of data was stored, through some easily verifiable piece of information. Similarly to how proof-of-work can prove through a hash that a certain ...

reference-request zero-knowledge-proofs proof-of-work
 asked by Luca Matteis 1 vote

### search of patterns in key schedules

I am developing a new key schedule, and there is this article (Enhanced Key Expansion for AES-256 by Using Even-Odd Method) where the authors also propose a new algorithm and one of the objectives is ...

encryption cryptanalysis algorithm-design key-schedule
Let $p$ prime number $q/p-1$ prime and $g\in (Z/pZ)^*$ element of order $q$.Also $a\in \{1,...,q-1\}$ the private key and $y\equiv g^a\pmod p$ the correspoding public key.For each of the following ...