phc-discussions - Re: [PHC] hash encryption

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Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 14:57:48 +0300
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: discussions@...sword-hashing.net
Subject: Re: [PHC] hash encryption

On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 02:27:01PM +0300, Solar Designer wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 09:18:41AM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > Suppose we ignore the round count variability and further weaken the
> > scheme by forcing either one or two rounds (obviously insecure).  Then
> > imagine we have two related keys k1 and k2.  k2 = k1 || padding1 || a
> > few more bits.  That is, k2 is what you get when you extend k1 by the
> > Merkle-Damgard padding you'd have if you fed k1 into your cipher
> > followed by some more bits.  (IOW this is a classic length-extension
> > setup, assuming I did it right.)
> > 
> > Now an attacker can use the block cipher under k1 as an oracle to
> > learn hash values under k1, which gives the attacker the entire
> > internal state of the round function prior to hashing in the extra
> > bits in k2.
> > 
> > This is obviously a useless attack as is (weird related key assumption
> > and only works directly on one or two rounds), but I can imagine
> > adaptive chosen plaintext/ciphertext variants extending to an extra
> > round or two.
> > 
> > The possibility of this type of attack would go away completely if you
> > used a wide-pipe hash or if you hashed in the key length.
> 
> Hashing the key length at a fixed offset (rather than only within the
> Merkle-Damgard padding, which is already happening) would remove the
> possibility of this type of attack because the longer k2 would then
> change the initial k1 length's worth of computation as well through the
> necessarily changing full k2 length embedded in that portion.  Going
> from that reasoning, here's another way to achieve the same effect:
> 
> Don't hash the key length, but instead hash in the round number after
> rather than before the key.  Since the round number is different for
> each round whereas the key is fixed across all rounds, the round numbers
> used for k1 can't (except for any one of them) be part of the longer k2.

Thinking of it some more, the exception may actually be important, still
allowing to attack the last 1 or 2 rounds.  So my proposed change isn't
as complete a mitigation as hashing in the key length would be.

Alexander