Summary for Weeks 11 to 14

• Lecture 19:We discussed the basic RSA algorithm, and proved that RSA works (recall that this used CRT). We also discussed the RSA problem and its relation to the security of RSA.
  Required reading: Chapter 10 (Sec 10.4).
  Date: Tu, 11/13/12.
• Nov 16 (11/16/12): Instructor was out of town
• Nov 20 (11/20/12): Quiz 2 was held on this day.
• Nov 22 (11/22/12): No class (Thanksgiving break)
• Nov 27 (11/27/12): Instructor was out of town.
• Lecture 20: We finished our discussion on RSA had how various parameters are set (e.g., how big should the prime be?) We started our discussion about hash functions, and discussed three properties/requirements of hash functions (collision resistance, second pre-image resistance, and pre-image resistance). We also discussed relative strengths of these three properties.
  Required reading: Chapter 4 (Sec 4.6, pages 127-130).
  Date: Th, 11/29/12).
• Lecture 21 (Tu, 12/4/12): Guest lecture by Prof. Tom Ristenpart. The topic was Merkle-Damgard transformation. The technique enables a conversion from a fixed-length hash function to a "complete" hash function (i.e., that can handle arbirary-sized messages).
  Required reading: Chapter 4 (sections 4.6.4 and 4.6.5)
  Date: Tu, 12/4/12.
• Dec 6 (12/6/12): Instructor was out of town.