Score:1

What does a uniform n-bit string mean?

ht flag

I am a total newbie to cryptography and I would like to know the meaning of a "uniform n-bit string". Also, why keys of that type are commonly used in private-key encryption?

Thanks!

kelalaka avatar
in flag
Welcome to cryptography. Did you take a basic probability theory? Seems not! Not a good starting way to cryptography. See [Part I: The Fundamentals](https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-012-introduction-to-probability-spring-2018/part-i-the-fundamentals/). The second part is not clear and the request of a listing is off-topic since too broad. If you ask why uniform since min-Entropy.
kelalaka avatar
in flag
Take a fair coin, throw it once, T=1, H=0, this is the first bit. Now throw it again, this is the second, and so on. This is uniformly and independently generated n-bit string.
kelalaka avatar
in flag
See: [Relation between entropy and min-entropy](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/63797/18298) and [Why is Min-entropy significant in cryptography?](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/q/66097/18298)
kelalaka avatar
in flag
Does this answer your question? [What is the difference between uniformly and at random in crypto definitions?](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/20839/what-is-the-difference-between-uniformly-and-at-random-in-crypto-definitions) and also see [Difference between Non-uniformly random and Uniformly random](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/q/95716/18298)
karim abousselham avatar
ht flag
Absolutely. Thank you
kelalaka avatar
in flag
+1 for the fast acceptance of the duplicate as my general rule...
mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.