That's a good point. You can feel free to strip them off. After byte 8, the rest of the outputs will appear almost entirely random. It depends on your usage.

That's a good point. You can feel free to strip them off. After byte 8, the rest of the outputs will appear almost entirely random. It depends on your usage. I'm imagining a database table on a server with a column of TripleSec-encrypted values. In that case, the adversary knows what he/she is getting by looking at the DB schema or reading the code.