Cryptographic Primitive

Cryptographic primitives are well-established, low-level cryptographic algorithms that are frequently used to build cryptographic protocols for computer security systems.

These routines include, but are not limited to, one-way hash functions and encryption functions.

Commonly used primitives

• Cryptographic Hash Function
• Symmetric key cryptography—compute a ciphertext decodable with the same key used to encode (e.g., AES)
• Public-Key Cryptography
• Digital signatures—confirm the author of a message
• Mix network—pool communications from many users to anonymize what came from whom
• Private information retrieval—get database information without server knowing which item was requested
• Commitment scheme—allows one to commit to a chosen value while keeping it hidden to others, with the ability to reveal it later Cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator