1. The difficult part was understanding the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange. It gave an example and threw out some numbers, so it took some time to understand what was going on.
2. I though that the similarity between the ElGamal Digital Signitures and the Elliptic Curve version was very interesting, since they basically look the same.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
16.4 for 7 December
1. The most difficult part was understanding the example using an elliptic curve over GF(4). I was not completely sure why some of the polynomials that resulted from plugging in elements of GF(4) had no solutions.
2. Using elliptic curves over GF(2^n) seems like it should be useful for computer applications since computer scientists always seem to like things to be in powers of 2.
2. Using elliptic curves over GF(2^n) seems like it should be useful for computer applications since computer scientists always seem to like things to be in powers of 2.
Monday, November 30, 2009
16.1 for 30 November
1. The example on page 350 was difficult to understand dealing with adding the points and talking about roots. I was a little unsure about what exactly was going on.
2. I thought the idea of points on an elliptic curve forming an Abelian group with an identity being the point at infinity was an interesting concept.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
14.1-2 for 18 November
1. The tunnel example did not make much sense to me. The example of the similar idea with the Feige-Fiat-Shamir Identification scheme at first was a little hard to figure out how step four verified that Peggy knew s_i, but then I reread it and it made more sense.
2. I thought that the idea of a zero knowledge proof was interesting, since it was a way of avoiding the ATM scam mentioned at the beginning of the book.
2. I thought that the idea of a zero knowledge proof was interesting, since it was a way of avoiding the ATM scam mentioned at the beginning of the book.
Monday, November 16, 2009
12.1 12.2 for 16 November
1. I was a little unsure of how the Vandermonde matrix was set up and why it worked exactly.
2. I thought the idea of secret sharing was interesting, that the secret could be split among 7 people but a minimum of 3 people would be needed to uncover it (as an example). The idea of an interpolation polynomial seemed like a creative way to go about it.
2. I thought the idea of secret sharing was interesting, that the secret could be split among 7 people but a minimum of 3 people would be needed to uncover it (as an example). The idea of an interpolation polynomial seemed like a creative way to go about it.
Friday, November 13, 2009
13 November
1. RSA is definitely a major topic, and how to attack it if it is not applied well. That would also include primality testing and factorization. Also discrete logs I would expect to have a significant portion.
2. I would expect to see some computational questions that would use techniques discussed in class to factor or find discrete logs, and some ciphers similar to what we have done in class that may have some weakness that can be exploited.
3. I feel like my weakest area is some of the more complicated algorithms such as Pohlig Hellman and the Quadratic Sieve.
4. Anything that would relate to number theory somehow I would find interesting, but there is nothing in particular I can think of.
2. I would expect to see some computational questions that would use techniques discussed in class to factor or find discrete logs, and some ciphers similar to what we have done in class that may have some weakness that can be exploited.
3. I feel like my weakest area is some of the more complicated algorithms such as Pohlig Hellman and the Quadratic Sieve.
4. Anything that would relate to number theory somehow I would find interesting, but there is nothing in particular I can think of.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
8.3,9.5 For 11 November
1. There were a lot of steps and details in the SHA-1 algorithm. The difficult steps for me were steps 1 and 3d. I was a the function was a little strange that is used in 3d and then the first step just didn't come clearly to me.
2. I thought it was interesting to see some actual hashes and signing algorithms now that we have talked in detail about what they are and some possible uses and weaknesses.
2. I thought it was interesting to see some actual hashes and signing algorithms now that we have talked in detail about what they are and some possible uses and weaknesses.
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