Trends in Modern Cryptography or How a Simple Polynomial Can Protect Your Email

Prof. Christof Paar
WPI Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

CS/WPI Bridge Colloquium
Friday, November 6, 1998
11 a.m.
Fuller Labs 311

Security is becoming a central concern in our information society. The

tapping of Newt Gingrich's phone is only one example of the vulnerability of the vast majority of modern information systems, ranging from cellular phones to the Internet. A central tool for providing system security is cryptography.

This talk will give an _understandable_ introduction to modern public-key cryptography. We will describe the most recent and most promising class of public-key schemes which is based on elliptic curves. Unlike algorithms such as RSA which require arithmetic with about 1000 bits, elliptic curve cryptosystems achieve a comparable level of security with 150 bits. This results in much higher processing speeds. In the talk it will be shown how a polynomial of degree three forms the basis for, e.g., a secure key exchange over insecure networks such as the Internet. This key can then be used to encipher an email message with strong encryption algorithms.

The talk will be accessible to a general audience and does not require any mathematics beyond Calc II. We will touch on many aspects of mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering. The talk concludes with related research that is being done in our cryptography research lab.

Host

Carolina Ruiz

Colloquium Coordinator

Carolina Ruiz

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