16.2, due 28 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

This section begins to map ideas used in the past onto elliptic curves. Sometimes it was difficult to fully make the crossover in my mind.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I found the difficulty of attacking elliptic curves interesting. I think it is cool that some of the attacks that work on a discrete logarithm do not work on elliptic curves. They seem to be very interesting mathematical objects.

16.1, due 26 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The idea of elliptic curves is new to me. Thus, thinking about all the different intricacies was the most difficult part for me.
What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think using elliptic curves for cryptography is very interesting. I am excited to see how they play out and what we will be able to do with them.

Enigma machine, due 20 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

I like thinking about all the challenging mechanical problems faced by the code crackers. Today, I would think "hey let's write a program". However, they actually had to build machines that would do this.
What was the most interesting part of the material?

I find it very interesting the vast variety of sources that helped to crack the code in this "real world" example. It was not just a single equation or method. It was a tireless back in forth of finding out more information, implementing it, working hard to brute force some things, coming across another piece of valuable information, etc.

19.3 and online reading, due 19 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

I am still wrapping my head around the ket notation. As well, the quantum Fourier transform was difficult to understand.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think it is really interesting how quantum computers change the computing paradigm. I liked how the online article pointed out that it is not simply a super-parallel computing device. There are still considerations we must have, and we must still understand how to exploit the structure of the problem we are solving.

19.1-19.2, due on 16 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The Quantum mechanics. I didn't follow everything about the different bases, etc. 

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think the idea of Quantum computing is very exciting and interesting. It seems like it would change a lot of how we do things. I am hopeful that we will see them come to fruiting sometime in our lives.

14.1-14.2, due on 14 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The Feige-Fiat-Shamir Identification Scheme is a little interesting. The trickiest part was understanding how Eve might be able to get away with certain selections of x if she knows the bitstring beforehand.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think the idea of zero-knowledge techniques is very fascinating. I think it is very cool that there is a scheme where one can identify oneself without revealing any part of the secret, and that the verifier can be satisfied. 

12.1-12.2, due on 12 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

Thinking about the (t,x)-threshold problem is a little interesting at first. I was also thoughtful about the Vandermonde matrix always being invertible.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think the idea of a shared secret is wonderfully interesting. I really enjoy how the schemes come together, and the practical implications for using such tools. This is a very interesting application of cryptography. 

9.1-9.4, due on November 5

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The most difficult part of the material was the section about the ElGamal signature scheme. There are more components of the signature than the RSA signature, and keeping track of all the pieces is more difficult.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think the idea of digitally signing documents is very interesting. I think it is a very cool idea to be able to prove that somebody has signed something. I think that this is a key part of the technology behind things like bitcoins.

8.4-8.5 and 8.7, due on November 2

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The most difficult part of the material was the section on multicollisions. It was difficult applying the birthday attack ideas to this idea.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think that birthday attacks are very interesting. It is a neat counter-intuitive problem. It once again shows why rigor is necessary along with intuition.