Section 16.5 due on December 11

I'm not sure if I understand why s needs to be mod n in the ElGamal signature scheme.  Other than that, this section made sense to me.

It's interesting how similar ElGamal and elliptic curve ElGamal are, and how the principles of one can be applied to the other.

Section 16.4, due Monday, December 9

This actually made a surprising amount of sense, though I'm confused how to determine the set of possible x values to put in an elliptic curve based on a finite field.  Do we just make one of the finite fields based on the type of finite fields we made before, where they were the set of polynomials modulo a polynomial with binary coefficients?

It was interesting to see how a finite field is used in this context, and also to see more applications of this concept.

Section 16.3, due Friday, December 6

This section was interesting, but I don't understand how it adds anything new to the factoring realm.  I think I'm not getting the bigger picture of how elliptic curves help us factor other than providing interesting opportunities to compute a GCD.

It is interesting to see the modern methods of factoring, and recognize that factoring is a more complex process than we recognize.

Section 16.2, due December 4

I don't understand how plaintext is encoded by elliptic curves.  I see how it's put in the x-point and how you have to be careful about making sure there's a square root to form the y-coordinate, but other than that, I'm lost.

It is interesting to think about the implications of elliptic curve cryptography.  I didn't expect to see it have ways to help with factoring, but I'm excited to see how it can lead to factoring algorithms.

Section 16.1, due on December 2

This section on elliptic curves is fascinating as well as being understandable.  The only main part that didn't make sense were some of the computations that were done in finding the third point in the addition algorithm.  Other than that, everything else made sense.  I am getting the feeling though that some things in here will use some more difficult concepts from abstract algebra.

This seems like a really interesting subject, and I'm interested to see how these curves will be applied to cryptography.  It seems like they aren't that connected, but I'm sure I'll see how wrong that thought is soon.

Assignment 37

Error correcting codes were rather hard for me to understand.  It makes sense why we need them, but how they work in practice did not make sense to me.  I don't understand how the error detecting and correcting algorithms work.

It was interesting to see how necessary these codes are.  I had never thought about the dangers of a noisy channel, but it makes sense that such error correcting codes would be needed in order to ensure clear communication.

Assignment 36

The enigma machine is quite an enigma to me.  I understand that it's mechanically generated, but I don't quite understand how the rotors produce different permutations of letters.  I understand that the rotors move, but I don't get how that creates different possibilities.

It is interesting to see an example of using technology in encrypt.  It's also amazing to see how much encryption has advanced, technology-wise, just in the past 70 years.