All Questions

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Introduction of quantum-cryptanalysis tag

Currently quantum-computing is about cryptography performed using quantum computers. Of course, questions that involve Shor's- or Grover's algorithm are not created to perform cryptography. They are ...
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Let's actually vote on our help-center sections!

Every now and then we see a clarification and minor change of the scope of Crypto.SE here on Meta, e.g. our resolution on side-channel considerations being on-topic as well as explicitly clarifying on ...
100 views

Is your question about cryptography *and not crypto-currency*?

When asking a question on the main site, the following text appears on the right hand side of the screen: Is your question about cryptography? We prefer questions that can be answered, not ...
81 views

Theoretical crypto puzzles on-topic?

I'm planing a question/puzzle, with pitch on the tune of The International Stamped Time Server (ISTS) broadcasts, every minute, a time stamp integrity-protected with RSA-4096. Days after it starts ...
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When is it approriate to include code in an answer?

I occasionally include functional code (usually C99) in answers, as an argument or illustration of my point. What should be the limits to that ? For example, I'm taking this comment as a challenge, ...
28 views

Should we allow minor edits for 0 points as Wikipedia does?

If the site allowed minor edits--the correction of up to three language errors--by folks who have reached a certain point level or number of edits, we might see many posts get cleaned up very quickly ...
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“moved to chat” links broken

It seems at least some "moved to chat" links are broken, example http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/70394/discussion-on-answer-by-gilles-public-randomness-based-random-number-generator-u This is ...
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Should we generally require hardware-related questions to specify specs?

I've just stumbled over one of our hardware-related Q&As again and it reminded me of something that always itches me when it comes to missing hardware specs. For examle, How fast a middle-class ...
180 views

What can we do about users that need rep to chat in The Side Channel

There have been some meta questions lately about where is a good place to talk about in-depth cryptanalysis and the design of entire schemes. These types of questions are explicitly off-topic for the ...
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Where to ask specific questions?

I have had my question put on hold/blocked because I was asking about a specific cryptanalysis example, which would detract from the general usefulness of the question to others, even though I was ...
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Does crypto.SE have systems for identifying systematic voting?

There seems to have been another round of negative waves, as:- Coincidentally it seems that one or several people all voted only once for the above answers, within an hour one day. And no comments ...
37 views

Place to discuss in-depth cryptoanalysis

Many heads are better then one, right? Is there a place where we can discuss the analysis of certain cryptographic schemes in detail? In particular, I'm actually writing a cryptoanalysis of https://...
25 views

Crypto puzzles on Crypto.SE

I wrote a cryptanalysis puzzle. It's pretty hard but pretty fun (in my opinion), and I'm wondering if people out there might be able to solve it. But is such a thing appropriate for this Q&A ...
133 views

How to ask for telltale signs that quantum computers become danger to classical cryptography?

I recently proposed this question: "Telltale signs that quantum computers become danger to classical cryptography?". It was closed as "primarily opinion based". How can the question be modified to ...
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Declined flags on questions which later get closed

I have noticed that a few of my flags (3 out of the last 5) for closure get declined, despite the flagged question later being closed for the very reason specified in my flag. Is there something I am ...
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Might a graphical TeX finder help anyone?

I came across Detexify, a graphical tool for finding the Tex symbol you need, and I wanted to share. Just draw what you're looking for...
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Our site logo's broken :(

As of now, our site's logo in the mid-top bar is broken, both on Crypto.Meta.SE and on Crypto.SE. Here's a picture of either site's logo: This bug was confirmed in private by a co-mod of mine and by ...
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Can we please have $\LaTeX$ in tag excerpts and tag wikis?

It has been brought to my attention in a private correspondation that Our tag wikis / tag excerpts don't support $\LaTeX$, that is you won't see the rendered result, but rather the $\LaTeX$ code ...
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Editing old questions

Just recently we had a whole bunch of minor edits of old posts. Mostly tag only edits some typo corrections. These were not bad edits as the added tag was correct but I noticed these posts were months ...
96 views

Burninate the cryptology tag

There was a question about the difference between cryptography and cryptology. Even if there is a positive answer: there is a difference then I think the difference is too small; almost nobody in the ...
346 views

How should conspiracy answers be treated?

There recently was a Meta Q&A where a discrepancy in the handling of so called "tin-foil hatted" answers was brought up, i.e. answers which claim that e.g. the NSA can break AES easily or answers ...
95 views

Flagging conspiratorial rants

On Sec.SE, it is not uncommon for people to flag (and delete) posts that spout conspiracies and do not give a real answer. I came across a question like that here on Crypto.SE and flagged it. The ...
134 views

2018 Community Moderator Election Results

Cryptography's second moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the new moderators is: They'll be joining the existing crew shortly — please thank them for volunteering,...
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Proposal for new category of tags: programming-interface and misuse-resistant

While programming questions are very certainly off-topic for Crypto.SE, very frequently programmers would hurt themselves by misusing (or sometimes abusing) cryptographic algorithms. This meta post is ...
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Why cannot I flag questions for migration to other SE sites besides Meta?

More than once I've tried to flag a question for migration to Math SE, Stack Overflow or Information Security SE. I do this by clicking on flag $\rightarrow$ should be closed $\rightarrow$ off-...
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2018 Community Moderator Election

The 2018 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase Primary phase Election phase Most elections take between two and three weeks,...
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2018 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire

In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as ...
182 views

Community Promotion Ads - 2018

It's almost February in 2018, which isn't supposed to be the proper time to cycle these, but for this year it'll be once again, so we'll be refreshing the Community Promotion Ads for this year now! ...
83 views

In an effort to share a learning resource; is it appropriate to post links to external sites? What is the right way to post a link to a learning resource? For example; SHA256 spreadsheet
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2018 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection

Cryptography is scheduled for an election next week, January 29th. In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates, as we did last election. This will be an opportunity for ...
103 views

Do we want bitcoin/cryptocurrency related questions? A cryptocurrency tag?

This question is inspired by this recent comment. My first thought in response to this was to create a cryptocurrency tag. However, we have been receiving a lot of questions here about bitcoin/...
131 views

RWC is around the corner, will you be there and want to be greeted?

As I'm sure you're all aware by now, Real World Crypto 2018 (RWC'18) is around the corner, starting on the 10th of January. Now I know many of us will be there, so I'm posting this question, for ...
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Tags page looks weird when there are no search results

On the Tags page, when there are no search results (e.g. if you search for test2), the tag list shrinks, but there's still a white ribbon visible in the footer, ...
151 views

What are some good discussion forums on cryptography?

I'm thinking of forums where you can have longer discussions and debates of the kind that are not typically allowed on a Q&A site like this.
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Is it OK to ask an unanswered question again, but written better?

I am new to this forum, so still feeling out the rules. I have asked a question and I fear I have added too much detail, where the actual question has got lost (this was pointed out to me in the ...
172 views

Should we rethink our position related to questions about cryptographic software and libraries?

On a regular base, we receive questions related to the usage and/or inner workings of cryptography-related software and/or libraries. Seven randomly picked examples of many: OpenPGP Public-Key ...
58 views

Does anyone know what all the decryption questions are for?

Ref: Find the encryption and decryption keys This is one of many such questions that pop up every few days. Someone's gone to the effort of posting this which takes time (unless it's a bot). No ...
61 views

Would it be possible to pre-define some Mathjax operator names globally?

Cryptography uses "custom" TeX operators quite frequently, at least in research papers, for typesetting/kerning purposes. Approximately 1.6% of answers (282 out of ~18k) on this StackExchange use <...
178 views

What about an “edit one's comments” privilege?

I regularly find myself in a situation where a mistake creeps in a comment I made, and I realize it after the 5 min allowance is over. Perhaps I messed up a word, a formula, or some part of a link. ...
58 views

Should we vote to close low-quality/homework questions, and if so, how?

We get scores of low-quality or homework questions where someone just pastes a question into the question box and hits submit. From the help center: Do we accept basic level/homework questions? ...
75 views

Typing a circled plus sign or a boxed plus sign like a summation

How do I type a modular addition symbol or an XOR symbol the same way as a summation symbol in MathJax? It's for indicating use of the operation over a sequence of numbers.
108 views

How can we modify our close reason and help center texts to allow “some” coding questions?

We recently had the following question: Timing vulnerability of byte array equality test? quote: Would the following code to test MAC equality leak timing information ? ...
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Duplicate Issue

I'm not sure why this question was closed as a duplicate. Link The closed question seems more general, and about best practices for having ciphers reviewed while the "duplicated" question is more ...
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Should we modify/adapt “Requests for analyzing…”?

We currently have an “on hold” reason stating: Requests for analyzing ciphertext or reviewing full cryptographic designs are off-topic, as the results are rarely useful to anyone else and/or would ...
27 views

What does tag(s) mean?

While I was adding gpg to my favourite tags, I saw there was no number mentioned besides the tag. If I search and add other tags, they present numbers like ...
40 views

Adding to question guidelines?

When asking a question the box on the right says: How to Ask Is your question about cryptography? We prefer questions that can be answered, not just discussed. Provide details. Share ...
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Where can I post / engage with the community regarding 'for fun' projects

I have been working on a 'for fun' crypto project and I wanted to share it with the community for input and discussion. It's fairly open-ended, so not a good fit for here. Where and how can i ...
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How can I send an answer to a crypto question which has been closed?

I got another answer for Looking for C++/Python Open Source code library for cryptanalysis of classical ciphers ? Can I add this besides the question was closed? Or is there a way to get in contact ...