Reporting some progress

Well, I’m posting some updates about my progress just to announce that I’m still alive and still willing to continue the phd programme yet still struggling from getting bored of the topic

1. The proposal (ver 7.0) had been submitted.
2. The problems due to my mistake of registering to a wrong course is being taken care of.
3. The slides for quals (and to be presented to #1, #2 and #3 on Mon and on the phd regular meeting on Wed) is almost ready. It’s 56 slides already, I’m giving quite a lot of diagrams, illustrations and simple calculations
4. The seminar about research and roadmap went fine.
5. The least important thing is: i dream about diagrams, hypothesis, philosophical way of thinking and bla bla blaaaa… every night. Sleeping is not so much fun anymore

Schedules and deadlines and updates

1. #1, #2 and #3 have approved the dissertation title and let me go for quals.
2. Quals will be on Dec 5th or earlier.
3. The dissertation proposal has to be submitted early tomorrow morning.
4. I have to present the proposal at phd regular meeting tomorrow (attended by #1, phd tutor and all phd fellows).
5. If I pass the quals I have to do the seminar on Dec week 2nd.

Bibdesk: 99 publications

I’ve been documenting papers on ECC and sort them and give them keywords and link them to my research proposal document in Lyx and got a big headache and dream about these papers whenever I sleep… zzzzz… arrrghghghg…..

Don’t know if the number of publications has been collected (I don’t read ALL of them, but AT LEAST i read the titles, abstracts and conclusions ) would make it easier to pass the quals… but i still feel distracted with the ideas on my head scattered and far away from convergence, aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Yeaaaaa, it almost reaches a hundred…

Compiling with OS X

TA-ing this class, I have to explain about compilation system. Later found out that OS X does not support many of the tools that relate to loading, linking and executing programs. More about it here.

To generate an assembly code from a c program saved as code.c :

gcc -S code.c

that will result code.s

The file code.s looks like:

Using optimization option

gcc -O1 -S code.c



gcc -O2 -S code.c

to compile and assemble code:

gcc -c code.c

will result code.o in binary format

to dump the object code, instead of

objdump -d code.o

i use

otools -tv code.o

[this posting is still being updated at any time

i'm doing many things at the same time right now ]

Compiling Crypto++

Has successfully compiled Crypto++ (pfffh, finally ). I made a very simple code (above), and standard g++ command for compiling did not work, until the library being installed to the library directory.

Here’s how to install the crypto package:

1. mkdir crypto

2. mv cryptopp552.zip ./crypto

3. cd crypto

4. unzip cryptopp552.zip

5. make

6. sudo cp libcryptopp.a /usr/lib/

7. sudo mkdir /usr/include/cryptopp

8. sudo cp *.h /usr/include/cryptopp/

Then compile it:

g++ -lcryptopp cryptopptest.cpp

And run it:

./a.out

I decide to do some experiments using Crypto++ for the following reasons:

1. It supports ECDSA, ECDH, ECIES
2. It supports both binary and prime curves
3. The library comes with domain parameters defined by NIST and SECG
4. Great support for manipulating data
5. Precomputation is supported
6. Crypto++ is trying to receive NIST’s certification of ECDSA

Crytographic primitives

From “Handbook of Applied Cryptography” – Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot, Scott A. Vanstone, the cryptographic primitives are:

1. Level of security. Usually difficult to quantify. Often it’s given in terms of the number of operation required (using the best methods currently known) to defeat the intended objective.
2. Functionality. Primitives wil need to be combined to meet various information security objectives.
3. Methods of operation. Primitives, when applied in various way and with various inputs, will typically exhibit different characteristics; thus, one primitive could provide very different functionality depending on its mode of operation or usage.
4. Performance. Refers to the efficiency of a primitive in particular mode of operation. (Example: an encryption algorithm may be rated by the number of bits per second which it can encrypt.)
5. Ease of implementation. Refers to the difficulty of realizing the primitive in a practical instalation. This might include the complexity of implementing the primitive in either a software or hardware environment.

I will put these on my research proposal…

Comparing cryptographic libraries

Luckily found a presentation titled “A Survey of Cryptographic Libraries supporting Elliptic Curve Cryptography”, and start filling in the table of library comparation.

Next step is to decide which library (ies) to use. Crypto++, LibTomCrypt and Bouncy Castle have already explored.

A loner

What a lonely and quiet day!

The lab is empty, everybody’s out of town!

Planning to make some progress today but this is too depressing. Nobody to talk to, or to discuss with or to share lunch with. Feel like switching to the other personality

What’s on mind

Is Java Crypto faster than C/C++?

One of the best IT expert and programmer I’ve ever known, suggests me to try Java for implementing crypto. He gave me lots of links and books, and now I’m going to explore more about crypto programming with Java and its library.

Java and Eclipse have been downloaded and installed!