Sec 7.2, due Oct 30th

1.This section was very long and had a ton of information in it. The thing that I thought was a little confusing was the Pohlig-Hellman Algorithm. There were just a lot of steps to follow and I might have gotten a little lost. I'm very upset that I'm missing class tomorrow, because I really need to learn about these things. Beth/Braden better take dang good notes! Call them out if they're not, or if they talking or doing anything but paying attention and taking notes :)
2. I really liked this section a lot. I think it's cool how we can compute discrete logs, and the different methods we have to do so. On page 207 at the very top, it talks about how the baby step, giant step process works for primes up to 10^20, or slightly larger, and then it says that it's impractical for very large p, and when I read that I was thinking, "seriously? I thought that primes up to 10^20 was huge... but I guess not." So that was kinda funny :) Well, I'm sorry I'm missing class, some family matters came up that I have to attend to. I hope that your baby boy is doing well and your wife. I'm so happy for you! Have you guys come up with a name yet?? Well, I'll see you on Mon! Have a great weekend, and make sure to let your kids get lots of candy on Halloween! :)

Sec 6.5-6.7, 7.1, due Oct 28th

1. These sections were great. I really liked the public key concept, I think I understood most of it, but maybe I didn't. I like the trapdoor idea, I think it's pretty cool. Now I understood the first example for discrete logarithms that they gave in the book, but then again that was just a very small and easy example, so I'm wondering how hard it's going to be with a very large number... maybe we'll learn that in class.
2.These sections were all really cool and interesting! The RSA challenge was cool, I can't believe that they came up with 524339 small primes! That is a ton! I'm also interested in learning more about the RSA signature scheme, but I guess that I'll have to wait til section 9.1, because there is no way that I could just go an read it by myself :) I wouldn't want to get ahead of the class :) JK, I probably will do that. All in all, I really enjoyed these sections, and I learned a lot!

Sec 6.4.1, due Oct. 26

1. This section was actually a little difficult to follow as it transitioned into matrices and stuff. I was kinda confused on a few of their examples. Like the one on the top of page 184, where it shoes the relation of 17078^2 which was congruent to 3 primes raised to powers, and then they transferred those powers into the row of a matrix. What I'm confused about is when we know when to stop, if that makes sense... So I understand that we have (6, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0) and the 6 comes from 2^6, the 2 comes from 3^2 and then I guess 0 for the primes 5 and 7, and then 1 for 11^1, and then I don't know why they out down 3 more zeros. Anyway, that was kinda confusing to me.
2. I really liked this section though, it was very interesting! I like the Basic Principle, I understand that, and we've gone over it in class, so that's great! I just hope to understand the rest of this section tomorrow in class, because it's a little fuzzy after just reading it myself, and I'm excited to see how well it helps us!

Sec 6.4 up to 6.4.1

1. This section was nice and short, and so the only thing it really covered was the p-1 factoring algorithm which was actually a little confusing, just trying to understand all the parts of it and how to come up with B and where people come up with this stuff! So I look forward to learning about it in class tomorrow!
2. I found the part of this section that I read very interesting! I'm excited to learn more about the p-1 factoring Algorithm in class and while I was reading about it, I just wondered like where people come up with this stuff! It's crazy! But also very cool! I hope you wife had your baby!! If so, Congratulations!! I'll ask you tomorrow in class...if there is class :)

Sec 6.3, due Oct 21st

1.I really like learning about primality testing, but one of the things that I thought was a little difficult to understand was the Miller-Rabin Primality test. The Theorem is really long, but when I went over the example it made a lot more sense. I know that when I see more examples in class today, that I'll be able to understand it a lot better too
2.I really enjoyed reading this section, I thought that it was really cool and interesting! And I know that it will helps us because there are methods in this sections that are extremely fast, and so I'm excited to have them!

Sec 3.10, due Oct 19

1. I really enjoyed reading this section and found it very interesting! It was a little disheartening at times when I would go through the examples in the book, and realized that I really needed to know those propositions like the back of my hand because for a large number like on the example on p. 92, it took like 10 steps, which I know is very fast, but it's fast because of all the steps from the propositions, so I just need to make sure that I know those really well and understand them!
2. This section was very interesting and fun to read about! I really enjoyed learning about the Legendre and Jacobi symbols and how they can help us find out whether a is a square mod p or not for a large p. I like seeing examples, and so I'm looking forward to seeing more examples tomorrow in class! Also, if your wife had her baby, then congratulations!! I'll find out tomorrow when I see you! :)

Sec 3.9, Due Oct 16th

1. This was a very cool section and I really liked it a lot! Although I had to read it slowly to make sure that I was understanding it correctly and following along, and really pay attention to the examples and go over them until I understood them, I'm a tad confused on the second to last paragraph on p. 87 where it talks about gcd(a-b,n)=p. I guess I understand it, I just might need a couple more examples :)
2. This section was great! It was very interesting learning about Square roots mod n, and it's nice to have a quick way to factor n. I know that this will help in RSA when n is a very large number made up of two large primes, and so it's all very helpful!

Sec 3.12, 6.2, due OCt 13

1. The RSA attacks were really cool, although I did have a little trouble understand a few of them. I thought that the timing attacks were really cool, but I didn't really understand it completely. I'll probably have to read over that again, but I thought that it was a great idea! Along with the rest of them!
2. I really liked continued fractions, I thought that they were really cool and interesting, and it was great that we had gone over them in class, because I felt like that helped me understand it a ton better! The attacks on RSA were really interesting too! I don't know how some people come up with this stuff, but they do, and it fascinates me!

?? Due Oct 12th

There were no reading assignments given for tomorrow on the website... I'm hoping that it's because your wife had the baby, and if so, CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I'm so happy for you!! I guess I'll find out tomorrow :) Have a good night

Sec 6.1, due Oct 9th

1. It actually took me a little while to really understand this, and I'll probably still need to go over the example so that I can understand it more. I also need a little more help understanding Claim 2.
2. I think that the RSA algorithm is actually really cool! I mean what a good idea! It took me a little while to understand it, but once I read the examples and stuff, it was a lot easier to understand. I also think that Claim 1 is really cool too! Also, PGP seems interesting, and it's a funny name, so it'd be fun to learn more about that.

Sec 3.6-3.7, due Oct 7th

1. The most difficult part of these sections for me was section 3.6.1. When they describe a public channel example with a mathematical realization. I understand the previous example of a public channel (the non-mathematical way :)) but I don't quite understand the mathematical way and the steps 1-5. So maybe if we could go over that more in class I'd understand it better.
2. I really enjoyed these 2 sections. I'm very glad that we were able to go over some of it in class before I read it, because it helped me understand what I was reading a lot better! There are still a couple of examples I wouldn't mind seeing again, but it really helped! I also think primitive roots are really cool. Either I learned about them before and forgot or something, but I think that they are very interesting and helpful! Of course I also like Fermat's Little Theorem and Euler's ?F-unction. All in all, great sections, very helpful to have gone over some of it in class before I read! :)

Sec 3.4-3.5, due Oct 5th

1. I thought that these sections were both very interesting and cool. They will be extremely helpful when it comes to larger numbers; there are some really cool shortcuts! There were a couple things that I didn't understand, specifically the example on page 77 about the x^2=1 (mod 35) I just didn't understand how they got to the answers of 6,29, and 34, but I felt like I understood until then. I will read it again and write it out. The next example that I thought that I understood but didn't towards the end was the example on pg 79 with the modular exponentiation, I think that they're just doing it mod 789, but I didn't know if we were using a calculator here or this was all just coming from our heads, in that case it might take a little longer... I just wasn't sure.
2. Like I said before, these sections were really cool. I really liked how they gave us an opportunity for shortcuts when it came to larger numbers, and they are just really useful theorems and examples that will definitely come in use!

Test Sudy Questions, Due Oct 2nd

* Which topics and ideas do you think are the most important out of those we have studied?

I think that the most important ideas and topics are the general ideas for each of the cryptography examples we have looked at. I also think that the Euclidean Algorithm, congruences, and finite fields are important as well. Basically everything, except the little tiny details that only apply to one problem at a time.

* What kinds of questions do you expect to see on the exam?

I expect a few ciphertexts, some computations, and maybe a TINY, LITTLE stuff about DES and AES :)

* What do you need to work on understanding better before the exam?

Understanding AES and DES, and refreshing my memory on the other things, even though I felt like I has a pretty good understanding of them, I could always use more practice. Hopefully we'll go over more of what's on the exam in class :)