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How to determine if encryption is symmetric or asymmetric

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I was wondering how to determine if an email that is sent is asymmetrically encrypted or symmetrically encrypted?

asked 09 Feb '14, 20:11

ihavenoidea's gravatar image

ihavenoidea
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accept rate: 0%

I am taking a network security class. We are given these packet captures and asked if it is asymmetric or symmetric encryption. I spent a few hours staring at each packet and have come no close to understanding it.

(09 Feb '14, 20:13) ihavenoidea

One Answer:

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There is no way to detect that just by looking at the encrypted data, as both symmetric and asymmetric encryption produce 'random looking' bytes sequences. So, you need to know how the e-mail was encrypted. Sometimes you can deduce that from information included in the encryption framework (PGP or S/MIME) or the protocol (TLS).

If you can post the capture somwhere (Google drive, dropbox, cloudshark.org) I will give some hints where to look for that information. I won't give the full answer for the homework!!

Regards
Kurt

answered 09 Feb '14, 23:51

Kurt%20Knochner's gravatar image

Kurt Knochner ♦
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accept rate: 15%

edited 09 Feb '14, 23:53