7.2, due on November 1

1. Difficult: I found following all the steps to computing discrete logs to be confusing. It was hard to follow where numbers where coming from and why it worked the way that it did.

2. Reflective: I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. It seems interesting but don't really know what to do with it.

6.5-6.7 and 7.1, due on October 30

1. Difficult: I found reading about the discrete logarithm to be hard. It just seems like a random concept.

2. Reflective: I just thought it was interesting to look at the treaty verification section. Its cool to see real world applications.

6.4.1-6.4.2, due on October 28

1. Difficult: The most difficult part of this reading was understanding how you found the numbers to use for the quadratic sieve.

2. Reflective: It is just really interesting to see all the ways that have been used to try to factor large numbers. Just because we have been doing it for so long it seems like it should be something easy but it's not.

6.4, due on October 25

1. Difficult: I'm confused on how the p-1 Factoring Algorithm actually works. It is weird to me that you can just pick a bound B and it will work.

2. Reflect: I think its really interesting that there hasn't been an easy way to factor found. We learn about factoring from a young age but getting into this I realize it isn't as easy as we have been lead to believe our whole life.

6.3, due on October 23

1. Difficult: I just had difficulty following all of the different primality test. How they work and why. There is just a lot to comprehend.

2. Reflection: We've been building up to this. It seems nice to have tests that will help us tell if a number is composite or probably prime.

3.10, due on October 21

1. Difficult: I don't really understand why all of this stuff works. It was hard to follow all the properties and why certain things worked.

2. Reflection: I don't think I've ever really seen anything like this. It is always nice to have properties that you can use though.

3.9, due October 18

1. Difficult: I don't really understand how this works to find the square root in mod n. I probably just need to hear somebody talk through it.

2. Reflective: I have no idea how this relates to anything I've done. I've never needed to find the square root of a number mod n.

6.2, due October 16

1. Difficult: I found most of this reading difficult. I felt as though it was a bunch of theorems and equations just thrown at me that I don't quite get what to do with them.

2. Reflective: I do see why we just did continued fractions. That will help us factor n.

3.12, due October 14

1. Difficult: I don't really get how or why the faster method for finding partial quotients works.

2. Reflection: I definitely remember doing partial quotients in probably abstract algebra. I remember finding partial quotients but I don't remember what we did with them except for just find them.

6.1, due October 11

1. Difficult: So I think I understand most of this material but the one thing that kinda confuses me is Bob makes n public and since n is a product of two primes wouldn't that be relatively easy for people to figure out what p and q are. Then anybody can find the decryption exponent d..

2. Reflection: Well after reading this section I realize why we covered the number theory we just did. It allows us to do this.

3.6-3.7, due October 9

1. Difficult: The thing that I found most difficult in this reading assignment was the Euler's function and Euler's Theorem. I just couldn't really follow the explanation of it.

2. Reflection: Before we did this it was important to cover the Chinese Remainder Theorem because it looks as though that plays a significant role with this stuff.

3.4-3.5, due October 7

1. Difficult: What I found difficult to follow was how modular exponentiation worked. I was having difficulty following why certain exponents were chosen and others weren't.

2. Reflection: I remember doing the Chinese Remainder Theorem in Abstract Algebra. It was only covered one day and we had maybe one homework problem on it. Therefore I don't really remember how to do it but I do know I have used it before.

Exam 1 questions, due October 4

1. Which topics and ideas do you think are the most important out of those we have studied? I think the most important ideas are understanding the different types of systems and what their weaknesses are.

2. What kinds of questions do you expect to see on the exam? I expect to see questions like our homework but that are easier to do since we have to do them by hand. They shouldn't be to hard if we know what we are doing.

3. What do you need to work on understanding better before the exam? I need to better understand all the differences between the different systems and how each of them works.

5.1-5.4, due October 2

1. Difficult: The most difficult part for me was following Rijndael in the first place and then trying to understand the decryption method. It's kinda hard to follow decryption when you don't really get the encryption part.

2. Reflection: This is nothing that I have seen before except for the basics we did in class on Monday. It makes sense that the more things you do to plaintext the harder it is for somebody to break.