Questions tagged [compression]
the act of compression reduces the size of the file(s) being compressed by encoding information and eliminating statistical redundancy.
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How sensitive are acoustic side-channels to compression with a narrowband codec?
Assume sensitive audio emissions from a mechanical keyboard. These audio emissions are often sufficient to reconstruct the actual key presses that generated the sound. If the audio is compressed using ...
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2answers
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Compression and Encryption against security issues
I'm having a hard time knowing whether the following setup is vulnerable to CRIME/BREACH type attacks (which target HTTPS).
I am running a Wireguard VPN that tunnels VXLAN protocol, using ChachaPoly20 ...
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Does compression level influence security of encryted 7z files?
I want to archive some GB of sensitive data. It is to be stored on an external drive that also includes non sensitive data so i don't want to encrypt the whole drive. For that purpose i want to use ...
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1answer
98 views
Obscure compression before encrypting
Assuming whatever encryption algorithm used was designed to support compression without any information leakage, would there be any reason not to use some custom compression algorithm to add obscurity ...
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1answer
337 views
Does TLS 1.3 mitigate the BREACH vulnerability?
Section 5.4 of the TLS 1.3 specification describes record padding.
One of the mitigations for BREACH is to add random padding.
Therefore, I'm wondering:
Does TLS 1.3 require random record padding? ...
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1answer
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Does it weaken the encryption of SSH to use compression?
When using compression on openssh (a la ssh -C ...), does this reduce entropy and make the tunnel traffic more vulnerable to cryptanalysis? Is compression an option I should disable server-side for ...
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1answer
245 views
What steganographic techniques can I use in images that survive lossy compression?
Learning a bit about IT security, a segment of the material was the basics of steganography - specifically, hiding information in the lowest significance bits of images, and converting images into ...
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3answers
336 views
How are websites actually mititating BREACH? (HTTPS + compression)
After reading some popular questions and answer on this website about BREACH, the only advice seems to be: don't compress anything that might contain secrets (including CSRF tokens). However, that ...
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1answer
481 views
Lost RAR password, is there any way to access my data? [closed]
I lost my winrar password of my file. I need to access it. Is it possible? If yes, how?
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1answer
63 views
What method to compress English by hand has the highest compression ratio? [closed]
Solitaire is a method for encrypting messages by hand. Reading it though, the only advantage the Solitaire has over a one time pad is that it can encrypt longer messages. It requires a new, random key ...
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1answer
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How to protect websites against ZIP bombs and reference bombs?
A Zip bomb (concept here) seems quite a "smart" and easy vulnerability to websites where uploading ZIP files is allowed. Such sites are under a threat (at least to make some degree of damage to them) -...
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1answer
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Can a compressed archive be constructed in a way to extract into system folders?
Using compression utilities, is it possible to create an archive that when extracted, will place certain files in certain areas on a users PC?
For example, suppose if I wrote a virus or a malicious ...
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1answer
214 views
Which HTTP Compression should I use (and how?)
I know that there are multiple HTTP Compression tools out there.
In order to entirely prevent a site from being susceptible to BREACH, which HTTP Compression algorithm should I use?
Also, how ...
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1answer
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How does CRIME work against cookies
Wiki on CRIME:
CRIME <...> is a security exploit against secret web cookies
RFC 2616 on Content-Encoding:
The Content-Encoding entity-header <...> when present, its value indicates what &...
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3answers
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Which encryption algorithm allows for the less output data than source data? [duplicate]
I am trying to figure out how to get my source information to compile smaller using encrypted text. This could potentially change the game in transferring large-chunked data and offer security at the ...
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1answer
258 views
What is the algorithm for ARJ encrypted files?
I came across some password protected ARJ files.
What is the algorithm for ARJ encrypted files ? How to decrypt them ?
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2answers
188 views
Best way to encrypt user data stored in xml?
First of all I am not very familiar with the world of encryption so please be nice.
I have got a data that should store in an xml using NetDataContractSerializer. This xml file gets the size of from ...
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0answers
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BREACH attack against SPA
I have a single page application that is hosted at example.com that relies on api.example.com. The SPA sends user credentials (JWT token) in authorization header for every request.
Let's suppose ...
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1answer
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JPEG artifacts leaking information about redacted contents
It was mentioned that JPEG should not be used between image creation and redaction of sensitive contents, because compression artifacts around the redacted area may leak information. Given how this ...
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2answers
533 views
SSL/TLS compression attacks on mail servers (smtp)
Currently, we know few compression attacks on the SSL/TLS protocol (such as Crime or Breach). I wonder for few days if these attacks are practicable on a mail server (smtp). Is CRIME attack ...
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1answer
45 views
Application control of HTTP content compression [closed]
How does an application control whether or not its http content is compressed? I am not talking about TLS level compression, but rather about the compression of https:// response bodies only.
In ...
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2answers
310 views
How can I select a compression utility that is popular and secure enough
In a previous posting on Which is a safe way to transfer a copy of a sensitive document?, I have received suggestions to compress and encrypt an attachment file using the options of utilities such as ...
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0answers
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Detectability of packing files in Windows 10
I follow the tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0RmclTe7Lo
to pack calc.exe in windows 10 at
C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe
But I get the following error:
What's the problem?
It ...
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2answers
750 views
Encryption and Compression
I've read that encryption produces random data and compression works by removing patterns in data and as a consequence, encrypted data has high entropy. I'm a bit confused, though.
The reason I'm ...
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8answers
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Are 7-Zip password-protected split archives safe against hackers when they are password-protected a couple of times?
Imagine I wish to upload my sensitive personal information (photos, document scans, list of passwords, email backups, credit card information, etc.) on Google Drive (or any other cloud service).
I ...
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2answers
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What are some possible uses of a zip bomb?
This article claims that zip bombs cannot be used today as modern systems are too smart for it and no victim is going to slowly unpack terrabytes of data so zip bombs are basically useless.
Is this ...
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1answer
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Brotli compression for HTTPS
It appears that Chrome, Firefox, and soon Edge, support the new Brotli compression algorithm over HTTPS only.
I can't find anything on whether this new compression algorithm is susceptible to the ...
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1answer
273 views
Are there valid reasons for compressed files (zip, gzip, etc.) to spoof file size?
Zip files, GZip files, and likely others, include information about the contained file, including the uncompressed size of the file. However, when extracting these files the number is meaningless as ...
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2answers
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What are the implications of reversing hashes
Today it was posited to me that
sha256 has a domain large enough to never encounter a collision and
that because it is such a large domain and given that a reverse function was created for it, that ...
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0answers
532 views
Is it possible to obfuscate binaries with UPX or similar software?
Warez scene groups often compress their binary executables using UPX or similar software.
I've heard somewhere that they do this to obscure the algorithms they use from other groups, but I find this ...
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4answers
301 views
Why browsers don't support TLS without encryption and deprecate compression for public data
These days we observes trend to use HTTP over TLS (HTTPS) for all communication. It recommend all weighty Internet service vendors and that claims to good practice. But TLS suite have 3 options for ...
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1answer
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.NET extraction and storage of compression files concerns
I have been provided a specification for an enhancement to one of my companies software products to allow extraction of uploaded compression files (just Zip currently) that will save and migrate the ...
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0answers
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The RAR archive format and authenticity verification [closed]
The changelog for RAR 5 mentions the following:
Features removed:
authenticity verification feature did not provide the required level of reliability and was removed;
...
I didn't find any ...
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2answers
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Various questions about file compression and encryption regarding hacking (zip, rar, 7z) [closed]
So I'm curious about a few aspects of compressed files (Zip, rar, 7z, etc), and how they impact hack-ability. There is enough on this subject that I'm not clear about (since this isn't a career of ...
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Decryping a RAR file with same password
I came across a problem very similar recently and wondered if anyone knew how to solve this.
So say for example I have an RAR archive called archiveA.rar and a password to protect it the password is ...
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3answers
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Encrypted password inside compressed archive
File compression utilities like Winrar or ZIP or 7zip encrypt the password and store it inside the archive.
How safe is that? I mean you are giving away the archive with the password inside,it's not ...
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3answers
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is g-zipping assets a security concern?
I recently noticed that the assets sent to clients aren't gzipped or minified on either my companies intranet or its public facing website.
I brought this to the attention of the networking ...
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3answers
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Security of decompression tools
How safe is it to decompress untrusted files with unrar-free? With unzip? I'm using debian jessie. What steps can be taken to minimize the threat while extracting the file's contents?
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1answer
399 views
Security risks of symmetric encryption with compression for database data
I would like to compress data before encrypting and storing it in a MySQL database to reduce especially bandwith requirements. In the future, the DB may be accessible via a web interface.
Various ...
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2answers
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Can BREACH be thwarted by simply adding a sort of "salt" into the page being compressed?
Django supplies GZip middleware, but the docs issue a stark warning about BREACH, which I had, hitherto, forgotten about. The first thought I had was that I should be able modify the middleware to ...
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3answers
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Is gzipping content via TLS allowed?
So I have these few compression directives at http level in nginx:
gzip on;
gzip_http_version 1.1;
gzip_vary on;
I read that this should be avoided because of CRIME/BREACH attack, is this correct?
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CRIME attack - If Javascript can be injected on the attacked machine, why not directly sending the cookie to a remove server?
I read about the CRIME - How to beat the BEAST successor? question and answer, but I don't understand that: If Javascript can be injected and run on the attacked machine, why not directly sending the ...
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5answers
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Can simply decompressing a JPEG image trigger an exploit?
The novel Daemon is frequently praised for being realistic in its portrayal rather than just mashing buzzwords.
However, this struck me as unrealistic:
Gragg's e-mail contained a poisoned JPEG of ...
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3answers
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Disk level encryption + compression performance?
What are pros and cons for using disk level encryption like VeraCrypt and then turning on compression on mounted (virtually decrypted) drive? It seams to me that this can even increase some ...
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4answers
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Which is more effective and 'secure': Compression+Encryption, or only Encryption?
This came up in an IRC discussion on freenode, and now I"m curious.
The idea is that someone wants to determine whether or not encryption alone, or compression+encryption (with gpg/pgp being the ...
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2answers
294 views
Determine if compressed or encrypted [closed]
I have a bunch of network data and I would like to determine if it is either 1) encrypted or 2) compressed. I doubt it is both, but the potential exists. If I am assuming that the traditional ...
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1answer
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Does encrypting a file make it larger?
I encrypted a Word document using Winrar by setting a password. Surprisingly the archive was larger than the original file (631 vs 614KB). I then tested to see what would happen if encryption wasn't ...
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2answers
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Could HTTPS-Attacks like CRIME be mitigated by changing the session cookie regularly?
I was just reading about CRIME which is an attack to steal sensitive information by creating requests. Could this attack be mitigated, if the Server wouldn't send the client the actual session key to ...
