Sec 16.1, due Nov 30th

1. This section was great! Really interesting! There were a few things that were a little confusing, but for the most part I felt like I understood it. I thought that the example on page 350 was a little confusing for me at some parts, and for some reason, I don't understand how infinity is the identity element of the group E, that was also confusing to me. Other than that, I really enjoyed this section!
2. I thought that this was a really cool section! Learning about elliptic curves and how they can factor integers, or how a huge bit key size can be reduced by a lot smaller bit size elliptic curve system is really cool! Although I didn't get everything in this section, I felt like I understood a lot, and I'm excited to learn more about elliptic curves.

Sec 2.12, due Nov 24th

1.Although I really liked this section, it was a bit confusing for me. I know that they had diagrams and stuff, but I just couldn't follow what they were saying :( I was confused on how they encrypted and decrypted things, and I just didn't really understand it. Anyway, I'll be able to understand it in class :) See you then
2. I really liked this section! It was fun and interesting to read about this enigma machine and what it did, and it was really cool to read about the history that surrounds it. Like how the Polish guys broke it and gave it to the British and they used it all during WWII and and the Germans didn't even know! Suckers... :) Anyway, it was a lot of fun to read and I also liked how it talked about cycles, that was fun. I remember cycles from 371, I loved those things. Anyway, great section! I'll be in class today, sorry for missing yesterday! If I don't get to tell you in class, Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Sec 19.3 and article, due Nov 23rd

1. I really enjoyed the article and this section in the book. However, the section was a bit confusing, and I'm still trying to get used to the new notation that we're using and stuff. I'll be sure to read the section again so that I can understand it better since I might not be in class today.
2. I really enjoyed reading the article, the author is a pretty funny guy and it was really easy to read and understand! So today we're going to talk about what we could do with a quantum computer if we had one? I suppose I will think about that a lot today, since I might not make it to class :( Also, I really enjoyed reading this section, although, I prefer the article over it, just because the article wasn't as long or quite as confusing, but I'm trying really hard to understand this stuff because it is very interesting to me!

Sec 19.1-19.2, due Nov 20th

1. Alright, I'm not gonna lie. This stuff sounds sooooo cool! It really does, I love the thought of using quantum mechanics to break ciphertexts and stuff because I love science and these kinds of these, but I am definitely not a physicist and this pretty much confused the heck out of me. I understand what they're trying to do I think and stuff, but I am not getting how they're doing it, but I can't wait for you to explain it in class today in a way that I'll understand it better!! Then I'll get way pumped for this!
2. I really did enjoy reading these two sections and the idea behind it, I just need a little help understand the concepts and stuff better.

P.S. No class next week?? :)

Sec 14.1-4.2, due Nov 18th

1. These sections were super interesting! I love all the real life examples that they give to! I mean, if this stuff can help not get my credit card info stolen, I'm all about it! :) I was confused about a couple of things. In section 14.2, the procedure that victor and peggy follow, I was confused at step 2, where Victor gets his b_i from {0,1}. So, can all the b_i's just be 0 or 1? They're not allowed to be fractions right? Other than that, I really enjoyed these sections and am excited to learn more!
2. Man, this stuff just keeps getting cooler and cooler! I love this idea of Zero-Knowledge techniques! I think that it is really interesting and fun to read about! I was confused about some stuff, but I'm excited to learn about it in class!

Sec 12.1-12.2, due Nov 16th

1. I really enjoyed reading these sections, and I thought that secret splitting is vey interesting and cool, but there were a few places that I got a little confused. Basically half way through section 12.2, where it started talking about hte matrices, and the sums of all the products and stuff, I kinda got a little lost, but I still think it's really cool!
2. These sections were extremely interesting and really fun to read about! I like the idea of secret splitting, and I think it's really cool how many different ways there are to do it!

Questions for Test

Which topics and ideas do you think are the most important out of those we have studied?
The most important things that I think we've studied are the computational problems that you can do by hand, and also knowing the steps and general idea of each of the cryptosystems we've learned about in this last section. I think that if I know how to do the computational stuff like chinese remainder theorem and know the steps and ideas of RSA, ElGamal, etc, and the definitions and theorems, that hopefully it'll be ok :)


What kinds of questions do you expect to see on the exam?
Just as I said before, I think that there will be a couple computational, some that show we know the steps and general idea of the cryposystems we've learned, and maybe some proofs, but hopefully not :)

What do you need to work on understanding better before the exam?
I think that I just need to focus on those things that I don't quite understand. Especially if it's on the study guide and I don't understand it. That includes a few of the cryptosystems we've learned, so I'll need to go over those and raelly understand them before I get near that test.


Are there topics you are especially interested in studying during the rest of the semester? What are they?
No, I've been very interested in what we've been learning so far. If the class continues like this, then I'll be very happy, I like this class a lot and I find most eveything very interesting!

Sec 8.3,9.5, due Nov 11th

1. Ok, I'm not going to lie, the secure hash algorithm was a little confusing to me... especially all the new symbols on page 225. I was also confused about how to know the block length that you would divide your message up in to. They had to add like a bunch of 0's and all sorts of stuff to finally get 6 blocks of length 512. So yeah, this section got me.
2. I really liked section 9.5 though. It was clear and I understood it, and it's nice because I've seen all that stuff before. I really liked learning about digital signatures, because not only is it interesting, but it's something that we can all relate to personally. Anyway, good sections for today, just a little confused on 8.3.

Sec. 9.1-9.4, Due Nov 9th

1. I felt pretty good about these sections, but if I had to choose something that was a little confusing to me, I would probably choose the section on ElGamal signature scheme. The process was a little confusing and I wasn't sure where they got some of the stuff.
2. These sections were are very interesting to read about and I really liked them! It was fun reading about digital signatures and all the different ways to keep them safe using RSA, ElGamal, Hash functions and Birthday Attacks. It made me think about all the things that I sign, and wonder if everything is safe. But like you said in class last time, if we're paranoid, we can always do what Alice did during the birthday attack section and put in a comma or something so that we completely changes the hash. So yeah, I really liked reading these section, they were a lot of fun!

Sec 8.4-8.5,8.7, Due Nov 6th

1. I really enjoyed reading about these sections! As I was reading, I go through and put little question marks next to the things that I don't understand as I'm reading. The first thing that I didn't understand was on page 231, when they said that "the probability of exactly i matches is approximately λ^ie^-λ/i!. I just don't understand where they got this equation from. The next part that was a little confusing for me to understand was section 8.5 about the multicollisions. I was wondering if there is any certain size block that we know to split the message M into? Then the big paragraph on the bottom of p 234 became a little confusing. Oh and then my last question is for the last section. I was wondering, what if Bob and Alice can't get together to agree on a shared secret key KAB? Will it just not work? Ok, I think that was about it! I really liked these sections!
2. Yea!!!! The time has finally come to learn about Birthday attacks!! And I think that it was worth the wait! I really enjoyed reading about them, and learning all the cool stuff that it does! It's like I want to go find the probability of a ton of stuff now and then test it, like they said to in traffic. Or I want to ask all the people in my class what their birthdays are and see if there is a match, it's so fun! I also liked how we can use birthday attacks to solve discrete logs! Now we have a few methods to solving those. Multicollisions were fun to read about, but got a little confusing for me about half way through. And then learning about using the hash functions to encrypt was pretty sweet I thought! It's just so fun and cool to learn about what people can come up with when it comes to encrypting messages and stuff! I love it!

Sec 8.1-8.2, due Nov 4th

1. I got a little confused with the proposition on page 221, and also, there were a few things about the simple hash example that I could use a little more explanation on, but you always do a great job at explaining things well in class
2.I really liked reading about hash functions! I think that they're really cool, and they seem pretty secure to me with those 3 conditions that they have to follow. I'm excited to learn more about them!

Sec 7.3-7.5, due Nov 2nd

1. The thing that I was most confused about was the ElGamal Public Key Cryptosystem. I think that I was just confused with some of the wording and the steps. I'll read over it again, but that was the most confusing to me.
2. Now this is what I'm talking about! Relating math to football! Haha, now this is easy to pay attention to and fun to read about! I love how they related the bit commitment to football, and it made it so much easier to understand! I also enjoyed the other two sections, they were quite interesting to read about.

*If this comes in late, please don't count it late! My internet has been messing up :(