I took up cryptography recently, and 1 of my task was to create a kama sutra cipher. Up till the point of generating the keys, I will have no problems. However, due to the nature of kama sutra, I believe that the keys are not supposed to be hard coded into the program, but rather generated for each plain text it takes in.
What I understand is that the cipher text's length should be the same as the length of plain text. However, the thing is that where do I place the key, such that as long as the cipher text is generated by my program, the program would be able to decipher it even if the program was closed. Given that this is an algorithm, I am sure that I should not be looking at storing the key in another flat file/ database.
There are not many related information online regarding this cipher. What I saw are those that allow you to randomise a key set, generate a cipher text based on the given key set. When decrypting, you will also need to provide the same key set. Is this the correct way of implementation?
For those who have knowledge about this, please guide me along.
If you want to be able to decrypt the cyphertext, then you need to be able to recover the key whenever you need. For a classical cypher, this was usually done by using the same key for multiple messages, see the Caesar Cypher for an example. Caesar used a constant key, a -3/+3 shift while Augustus used a +1/-1 shift.
You may want to consult your instructor as to whether a fixed key or a varying key is required.
It will be simpler to develop a fixed key version, and then to add varying key functionality on top. That way you can get the rest of the program working correctly.
You may also want to look at classical techniques for using a keyphrase to mix an alphabet.
Related
So I've been studying this concept of length extension attacks and there are few things that I noticed during my study about it which are not very bright to me.
1.Research papers are explaining how you can append some type of data to the end and make newly formed data. For example
Desired New Data: count=10&lat=37.351&user_id=1&long=-119.827&waffle=eggo&waffle=liege
(notice 2 waffles). My question is if a parser function on the server side can track duplicate attributes, could then the entire length extension attack be nonsense? Because the server would notice duplicate attributes. Is a proper parser that is made to check any duplicates a good solution versus length extension attacks? I'm aware of HMAC approach and other protections, but specifically talking just about parsers here now.
2.Research says that only vulnerable data is H(key|message). They claim that H(message|key) won't work for the attacker because we would have to append a new key (which we obviously don't know). My question is why would we have to append a new key? We don't do it when we are attacking H(key|message). Why can't we rely on the fact that we will pass the verification test (we would create the correct hash) and that if the parser tries to extract the key from it, that it would take the only key in the block we send out and resume from there? Why would we have to send 2 keys? Why doesn't attack against H(message|key) work?
My question is if a parser function on server side can track duplicate attributes, could then the entire length extension attack be a nonsense?
You are talking about a well-written parser. Writing software is hard and writing correct software is very hard.
In that example, you have seen an overwritten attribute. Are you able to say that a good parser must take the last one or the first one? What is the rule? There can be stations that the last one must be taken! That is an attack that can be applied or not. This depends on the station. If you consider that the knowledge of the length extension attack goes back to 1990s, then finding a place applicable to this should amaze someone!. And, it is applied in the wild to Flickr API in 2009, after almost 20 years;
Flickr's API Signature Forgery by Thai Duong and Juliano Rizzo Published on Sep. 28, 2009.
My question is why would we have to append new key? We don't do it when we are attacking H(key|message). Why can't we relay on the fact that we will pass verification test (we would create correct hash) and that if parser tries to extract key from it, that it would take the only key in the block we send out and resume from there. Why would we have to send 2 keys? Why doesnt attack against H(message|key) work?
The attack is a signature forgery. The key is not known to the attacker, but they can still forge new signatures. The new message and signature - extended hash - is sent to the server, then the server takes the key and appends it to the message to execute a canonical verification, that is; if it does the signature is valid.
The parser doesn't extract the key, it already knows the key. The point is that can you make sure that the data is really extended or not. The padding rule is simple, add 1 and fill many zeroes so that the last 64 (128) is the length encoding (very simplified, for example, the final length must be multiple of 512 for SHA256). To see that there is another padding inside you must check every block and then you may claim that there is an extension attack. Yes, you can do this, however, the one of aims of cryptography is to reduce the dependencies, too. If we can create a better signature that eliminates the checking then we suggest to left the others. This enables the software developers to write more secure implementation easily.
Why doesn't attack against H(message|key) work?
Simple, you get the extended message message|extended and send the extended hash
H(message|key|extended) to the server. Then the server takes the message message|extended and appends the key message|extended|key and hashes it H(message|extended|key) and clearly this is not equal to the extended one H(message|key|extended)
Note that the trimmed version of the SHA2 series like SHA-512/256 has resistance to length extension attacks. SHA3 is immune to it by design and that enables a simple KMAC signature scheme. Blake2 is also immune since it is designed with the HAIFA construction.
My example is that I am using a fingerprint scanner, the fingerprint data is stored in a blob field, so I want to make sure that the same fingerprint does not get inserted, so whats the best way to compare these fields.
This does not seem to be about delphi or blob fields at all, since "the same fingerprint" will rarely (if ever) happen. Even the same person will produce slightly different images every time (s)he puts a finger on the scanner. Therefore the real problem is not checking for equality but checking for close matches which is a nontrivial problem in and of itself. You should consult specialized literature.
Closed. This question is off-topic. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it's on-topic for Stack Overflow.
Closed 10 years ago.
Improve this question
can somebody explain this algorithm is secure or not? is there attack to break that? this algorithm uses common XOR cryptography but has some differences:
M(1) = key XOR Message(1)
M(2) = h(key) XOR Message(2)
M(3) = h(h(key)) XOR Message(3)
and so on
Notes:
M(i) is ciphered text
Message(i) is message that we are going to cipher it
key and Message(i) have the same lengths**
attacker just has the ciphered text and knows key making scheme(continues hashing) and XOR cryptography
hash algorithm is SHA-512
If the attacker ever gets to know a plaintext-ciphertext pair, he can calculate the corresponding key. And from that he can calculate all later keys. i.e. it's trivially vulnerable to a known plain text attack.
Note that when I say that the attacker guesses the message, I don't mean that he's sure that his guess is correct. He might make a few trillion guesses, and if one of them is correct, your whole scheme is broken.
And of course you must not ever reuse a key.
A more secure (but twice as slow) algorithm would be:
Key(i+1) = h("A"+key)
M(i) = h("B"+key) XOR Message(i)
Or a construction similar to CTR mode:
M(i) = h(i+key) XOR Message(i)
But I still wouldn't use either.
But there is no reason to use such a homebrew algorithm. There are plenty of existing algorithms that work well. For example if you like a stream cipher design, you could use AES in CTR mode.
Studying encryption algorithms is great fun. Just remember you are playing, not producing anything serious. As long as you are only keeping things like your personal diary (or maybe even passwords) encrypted and you keep the data secure, you will probably be fine. This kind of counts as security through obscurity. I would not recommend encrypting mass quantities of data that you REALLY need to keep private or anything that is available and of interest to the outside world, however.
In this case, if your message is shorter than the key size and hash block size and the key is single use and random, you are effectively using a one-use pad so everything in swell. Provided your random number key generation is perfect, you have an unbreakable encryption mechanism. As you add each block to the message, you are effectively calculating new keys using SHA-512, not adding any particular value. If an attacker can assume the message consists of printable text and if the length of the message is long or the key is used repeatedly, it should would not be too difficult to find the original key.
It would be more effective to calculate:
M(1)=h(N + key) XOR Message(1)
M(2)=h(M(1)) XOR Message(2)
M(3)=h(M(2)) XOR Message(3)
(where N is the number of times the key has been used which is passed in clear text.)
That way the bad guys can’t calculate your key sequence ahead of time and decrypt your message before you can. Also by using a salted hash of the key, the attacker won’t be able to predict the key sequence that will be used next time.
I read somewhere:
The first rule of cryptography is “Cryptography should be left to experts.”
The second rule is “You are not an expert.”
There is a reason people get PhDs in things like Computer Science and Mathematics. There is a lot to learn and discover. Something like this looks fine to me but no doubt it has a gaping hole that an attacker could drive a truck through.
Have fun and don't let grouchy people like me get you down.
/Bob Bryan
I'm wanting to encrypt some data (hopefully under five hundred bytes' worth) and store it in a QR code. Originally I wanted to use RSA, so the data would be signed with User A's private key and User B's public key, but unfortunately, VB.NET doesn't like encrypting that much data. I've read that I should use Rjindael to encrypt the actual data, and then use RSA to encrypt the key used by Rjindael. However, I'm not having much luck being able to search the web for some kind of tutorial or something.
Also, if I was wanting to store this on a QR code, wouldn't I have to store both the encrypted data and the encrypted key used by Rjindael? Do you think this would all fit? I may be able to use version 40 on medium error correction (according to http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/vertable4-e.html, it stores 18,672 "data bits"), but I would prefer to use a lower version (that is, smaller) if at all possible.
Generating the QR code won't be the problem (I know there's a .NET library for that), I'm just curious about getting the data encrypted to begin with.
Thanks for your help!
Sam
Look at the "binary" column. This is actually how many bytes you can store.
Anything above version 10 gets a bit hard to scan in practice, though possible. Above version 20 it's quite difficult from a camera, though can be scanned off a printed page. So if the point is to scan with a camera -- no doesn't sound like it will fit in practice.
When I hear about methods for breaking encryption algorithms, I notice there is often focused on how to decrypt very rapidly and how to reduce the search space. However, I always wonder how you can recognize a successful decryption, and why this doesn't form a bottleneck. Or is it often assumed that a encrypted/decrypted pair is known?
From Cryptonomicon:
There is a compromise between the two
extremes of, on the one hand, not
knowing any of the plaintext at all,
and, on the other, knowing all of it.
In the Cryptonomicon that falls under
the heading of cribs. A crib is an
educated guess as to what words or
phrases might be present in the
message. For example if you were
decrypting German messages from World
War II, you might guess that the
plaintext included the phrase "HElL
HITLER" or "SIEG HElL." You might pick
out a sequence of ten characters at
random and say, "Let's assume that
this represented HEIL HITLER. If that
is the case, then what would it imply
about the remainder of the message?"
...
Sitting down in his office with the
fresh Arethusa intercepts, he went to
work, using FUNERAL as a crib: if this
group of seven letters decrypts to
FUNERAL, then what does the rest of
the message look like? Gibberish?
Okay, how about this group of seven
letters?
Generally, you have some idea of the format of the file you expect to result from the decryption, and most formats provide an easy way to identify them. For example, nearly all binary formats such as images, documents, zipfiles, etc, have easily identifiable headers, while text files will contain only ASCII, or only valid UTF-8 sequences.
In assymetric cryptography you usually have access to the public key. Therefore, any decryption of an encrypted ciphertext can be re-encrypted using the public key and compared to the original ciphertext, thus revealing if the decryption was succesful.
The same is true for symmetric encryption. If you think you have decrypted a cipher, you must also think that you have found the key. Therefore, you can use that key to encrypt your, presumably correct, decrypted text and see if the encrypted result is identical to the original ciphertext.
For symmetric encryption where the key length is shorter than the cipher-text length, you're guaranteed to not be able to produce every possible plain-text. You can probably guess what form your plain--text will take, to some degree -- you probably know whether it's an image, or XML, or if you don't even know that much then you can assume you'll be able to run file on it and not get 'data'. You have to hope that there are only a few keys which would give you even a vaguely sensible decryption and only one which matches the form you are looking for.
If you have a sample plain-text (or partial plain-text) then this gets a lot easier.