Suggested Project Topics
and Related Resources - Spring 2008

Software projects

Group SW1
Extensions to Cryptool - public domain educational program for learning cryptology

Resources common for the entire group:

• CrypTool - E-learning Program for Cryptology - Homepage
   

• JCrypTool - the Java based successor of CrypTool (under development)

• CrypTooLinux - a clone of CrypTool on Linux (under development)

• C#-CrypTool 2.0 - Developer Site

Suggestions for the Possible CrypTool Extensions

1. Number Field Sieve factoring algorithm

Resources:

• General Number Field Sieve - Wikipedia article

• Song Y. Yan, Number Theory for Computing, 2nd ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2002.

• Arjen K. Lenstra and H. W. Lenstra, Jr. (eds.), The development of the number field sieve, Lecture Notes in Math. (1993) 1554. Springer-Verlag.

• Carl Pomerance, "A Tale of Two Sieves," Notices of the AMS 43 (12): 1473-1485, Dec. 1996.

• B. Murphy and R. P. Brent. "On quadratic polynomials for the number field sieve," Australian Computer Science Communications 20 (1998), pp. 199-213.

• Thorsten Kleinjung, "On polynomial selection for the general number field sieve," Mathematics of Computation 75: 2037-2047 (Oct. 2006).

• Jens Franke and Thorsten Kleinjung, "Continued Fractions and Lattice Sieving," SHARCS 2005.

• Chandana Anand, "Factoring of Large Numbers using Number Field Sieve - The Matrix Step," Research Project Report and Scholarly Paper, ECE Department, Spring 2007. (source codes in C++ based on the LiDIA library, and in MAGMA available on request).

• Libraries and Programming Resources

2. Timing attacks against public key cryptosystems

   Resources:

   • Paul C. Kocher, "Timing Attacks on Implementations of Die-Hellman, RSA, DSS, and Other Systems," -  Proc. Crypto'96, pp. 104-113.

   • Kevin Magee, "Timing Cryptanalysis," Scholarly Paper, George Mason University, ECE Department, September 2004

   • Kevin Magee, Program demonstrating timing attack for a short key

3. Statistical tests for randomness

   Resources:

   • Random Number Generators

4. Generating large primes for cryptographic applications using deterministic and probabilistic methods

   Resources:

   • A. Granville, "It Is Easy To Determine Whether a Given Integer Is Prime," Bulletin (New Series) of the American Mathematical Society Vol. 42 No 1, pp 3-38.

   • Robert G. Salembier and Paul Southerington, "An Implementation of the AKS Primality Test," ECE 746 Project Report, Spring 2005

   • Robert G. Salembier and Paul Southerington, AKS Implementation, source codes available on request

   • Dong Wan Han, Generating strong prime numbers using probabilistic tests for primality, ECE 646 Project, Spring 1999 (presentation + report)

5. Generation of truly random numbers with known factorization

   Resources:

   • Adam Kalai, Generating Random Factored Numbers, Easily

   • Eric Bach and Jeffrey Shallit, Algorithmic Number Theory (Volume I: Efficient Algorithms), MIT Press, 1996

 

Group SW2
Experiments with eBATS - eCRYPT Benchmarking of AsymmeTric Systems

Resources common for the entire group:

• eBATS: ECRYPT Benchmarking of Asymmetric Systems - Homepage

Suggestions for the Possible Projects Involving eBATS
 

6. Comparative analysis of software multi-precision arithmetic libraries for public key cryptography

Resources:

• Ashraf Abusharekh, Comparative Analysis of Multi-Precision Arithmetic Libraries for Public Key Cryptography, MS Thesis, George Mason University, ECE Department, April 2004

7. Developing eBATS based on the new ECC library developed at GMU as a part of ECE 746 in Fall 2006 - ECClib

Resources:

• Matthew Estes and Philip Hines, Efficient Implementation of Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems over Binary Galois Fields, GF(2^m) in Normal and Polynomial Bases, ECE 746 Project, Fall 2006 (final report + final presentation).

• D. Hankerson, A. Menezes, and S. Vanstone, Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Springer, 2004

• M. Rosing, Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Manning Publications, 1998, including the source codes (scroll to the bottom of the book web page for the Download link)

8. Extending eBATs to support new emerging class of public key cryptosystems called pairing-based cryptosystems

Resources:

• P. S. L. M. Barreto, H. Y. Kim, B. Lynn, M. Scott, "Efficient Algorithms for Pairing-Based Cryptosystems," Crypto 2002.

• The Pairing-Based Crypto Lounge

• Paulo S. L. M. Barreto, Steven Galbraith, Colm O hEigeartaigh, and Michael Scott, "Efficient Pairing Computation on Supersingular Abelian Varieties," Cryptology ePrint Archive, 2004/375.

• Soonhak Kwon, "Efficient Tate Pairing Computation for Supersingular Elliptic Curves over Binary Fields," Cryptology ePrint Archive, 2004/303.

• John Gibson, Efficient Software Implementations of Pairing Based Cryptosystems over Binary Fields, MS Thesis, GMU, ECE Department (under development).

Hardware projects

Group HW1
Comparative Analysis of Various Hardware Architectures of AES

Resources common for the entire group:

• FPGA and ASIC Implementations of AES, by Kris Gaj and Pawel Chodowiec (to be published as a chapter of a textbook on Cryptographic Engineering)
   

Suggestions for the Possible Project Topics

9. S-box vs. T-box based iterative architecture of AES

   Resources:

   • FPGA and ASIC Implementations of AES, Section 7, Hardware architectures of a single round of AES.

   • Viktor Fischer and Milos Drutarovsky, "Two methods of Rijndael implementation in reconfigurable hardware," CHES 2001.
      

10. Fully pipelined implementations of AES with a speed exceeding 20 Gbit/s with S-boxes implemented using logic only (instead of look-up tables)

    Resources:

    • FPGA and ASIC Implementations of AES, Section 6, Implementation of basic operations of AES in hardware.

    • D. Canright, "A very compact Rijndael S-box," Technical Report NPS-MA-05- 001, 2005.

    • D. Canright, "A very compact S-box for AES," CHES 2005 (paper + presentation)

11. Compact architectures of AES with a data path width equal to 8-bits, 32-bits, 64-bits, 128-bits

    Resources:

    • FPGA and ASIC Implementations of AES, Section 7.3, Compact architectures.

    • P. Chodowiec and K. Gaj, "Very compact FPGA implementation of the AES algorithm," CHES 2003.

    • T. Good and M. Benaissa, "AES on FPGA from the fastest to the smallest," CHES 2005.

     

Group HW2
eBATS for FPGA-based platforms

Resources common for the entire group:

• eBATS: ECRYPT Benchmarking of Asymmetric Systems - Homepage

 

12. Block cipher eBATS for Xilinx or Altera FPGAs

Resources:

• K. Gaj and P. Chodowiec, "Hardware performance of the AES finalists - survey and analysis of results," Technical Report, George Mason University, September 2000.

• Pawel Chodowiec, Comparison of the Hardware Performance of the AES Candidates Using Reconfigurable Hardware, MS Thesis, ECE Department, GMU, 2002 (thesis + slides).

• Xilinx Design Tools

• Altera Design Software
   

12. Stream cipher eBATS for Xilinx or Altera FPGAs

Resources:

• eSTREAM, the ECRYPT Stream Cipher Project

• eSTREAM - hardware performance comparison

• Xilinx Design Tools

• Altera Design Software
   

Analytical projects

Group AN

13. Analysis of various proposed designs for True Random Number Generators

    Resources:

    • Viktor Fischer, Milos Drutarovský, Martin Šimka, Nathalie Bochard, "High Performance True Random Number Generator in Altera Stratix FPLDs," FPL 2004

    • Paul Kohlbrenner and Kris Gaj, "An Embedded True Random Number Generator for FPGAs," FPGA 2004

    • Holger Bock, Marco Bucci, Raimondo Luzzi, "An Offset-Compensated Oscillator-Based Random Bit Source for Security Applications," CHES 2004.

    • Marco Bucci, Raimondo Luzzi, "Design of Testable Random Bit Generators," CHES 2005 (paper + presentation).

    • Markus Dichtl, Jovan Golic, "High-Speed True Random Number Generation with Logic Gates Only," CHES 2007.

    • Random Number Generators
       

14. Analysis of countermeasures against side-channel attacks based on power analysis

    Resources:

    • ECE 746 Lecture on Side Channel Attacks

    • Collection of technical papers on Differential Power Analysis from Cryptography Research Inc.

    • ECRYPT The Side Channel Cryptanalysis Lounge

    • IAIK TU Graz, SCA-Lab Publications

    • Stefan Mangard, Elisabeth Oswald, and Thomas Popp, Power Analysis Attacks - Revealing the Secrets of Smartcards, Springer, 2007.
       

15. Certification of cryptographic modules according to FIPS 140-2 and/or Common Criteria– case study of FPGA-based products and/or smart cards

    Resources:

    • FIPS 140-2: Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules

    • FIPS 140-2 Overview

    • Common Criteria
       

16. Survey of patents related to cryptographic algorithms and their implementations, with the special focus on ECC-related patents

    Resources:

    • Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot, and Scott A. Vanstone, Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press, Inc., 1996, Chapter 15, Patents and Standards

    • RSA Laboratories, Patents on Cryptography

    • Wikipedia, ECC Patents

    • D. J. Bernstein, Irrelevant patents on elliptic-curve cryptography
       

17. Cache attacks against secret key cryptosystems and analysis of effectiveness of all known countermeasures

    Resources:

    • Daniel Bernstein, Cache-timing attacks on AES

    • Robert G. Salembier, "Analysis of Cache Timing Attacks against AES, Scholarly Paper," ECE Department, May 2006

    • Dag Arne Osvik, Adi Shamir, Eran Tromer, "Cache attacks and countermeasures: the case of AES," Proc. CT-RSA 2006.

    • Dag Arne Osvik, Adi Shamir, Eran Tromer, "Full AES key extraction in 65 milliseconds using cache attacks," presentation at the Crypto 2005 rump session