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Cryptography

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    $\begingroup$ Note that this is not a secure sample code because a smart compiler will notice that power_temp is never used and that its defining RHS doesn't have side-effects as per the language specification and will optimize it away. A better solution would be to remove the if and add a constant time conditional copy in the next line. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 18:49
  • $\begingroup$ @SEJPM I'll look into that. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 18:56
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    $\begingroup$ I think the basic python interpreter doesn't do dead-store / dead-code elimination. But I suppose it's not a great idea to make such an implicit assumption about the interpreter / compiler and "just providing a secure example" might be a better plan. Also to counter power-analysis attacks multiplicative blinding may be necessary. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 19:19