Question

Given a database like CryptDB, is it possible to determine whether the data is actually encrypted with the correct (specified) onion?

I'll elaborate a bit: CryptDB uses onions (chaining) of encryption algorithms to provide an ecrypted RDBMS. It encrypts a column with at least one algorithm and stores the algorithm(s) used for that column somewhere.

Given the fixed set of possible algorithms, all respective keys, a cipher text and the list of algorithms CryptDB stored as used, is it possible to determine from the cipher whether these algorithms were actually used?

Answer 1

If you have the keys (and other parameters, e.g. IV), you could just decrypt the data. That would tell you that the right algorithm was used.

If you don't have the keys, then it's very unlikely. If you could do so, you'd be performing a distinguishing attack. There are known distinguishers for some common ciphers (e.g. RC4) but not for others (e.g. AES). The existence of these usually implies that the cipher is flawed in some way.