I was dismissed from my Masters program due to bad grades. I also have a mention in my records that say that I might have used last years homework. I did not copy and they had no proof that I copied per se. I couldn't care less about my grades at the time and I deeply regret doing what I did. Is there hope for me in applying to grad schools in the future? 

Additionally, I am an international student. Can someone tell me if all this will affect my getting a VISA?


Question: Is encrypting a single 128 bit block with AES ECB "safe"
Answer: 16 bytes is 128 bits, which matches the block size of AES-256, but not "256 bit block" in the (original) title. Hence the question is ambiguous: was it meant 16, or 32 bytes?

For 16 bytes: ECB reduces to single-block encryption, and yes ECB is safe, for a definition of safe that let one test identity of plaintexts by testing identity of the ciphertexts.

For 32 bytes (e.g. a US SSN encoded in UTF16 or perhaps ASN.1 or XML): no, ECB is unsafe. This extend to any standard block cipher mode of operation modified by fixing IV. Problem is, plaintexts that match in the first block, but not the second, will match in the first block of the ciphertext, but not the second, which leaks information (e.g. in the US SSN format, it allows to cluster plaintexts by identical area number if the block frontier happens to be on the right of that). You need a 256-bit block cipher, such as Rijndael (a superset of AES) instantiated with 256-bit block. There are ways to construct a 256-bit block cipher from AES-256, but I know none with both a sound security argument and either a short statement, or performance close to Rijndael.

Note: Public key encryption can not be used in the context where "encrypted value of the block (is) to be consistent between encryptions" and the plaintext is low-entropy (enumerable, or guessable). Here, there are few enough SSNs that they can all be enciphered by anyone (knowing the public key), and compared with the ciphertext, leaking the plaintext.

Update: it is now clear that the question is about 16 bytes. I wonder if some day, UTFx with x>8 will catch in the US.