Computer Security and Encryption

Paper Summary:

This paper describes and analyzes various methods of computer encryption that are used to protect data as it traverses the Internet. The author describes how data and information packets going through cyberspace are susceptible to interception and compromise. Several programs that protect data are described, including DES, RSA, AES, Blowfish and ECC. The author reviews these packages, and concludes that despite the availability of several cryptosystems in the market, security should still be based on the needs of the situation

From the Paper:

"Aside from DES and RSA, other crypto solutions are Blowfish, ECC and AES. Blowfish is a block cipher using 32 to 448 bits long keys. The data blocks go through 16 rounds of cryptographic functions (Staron and Adams, 2001) and the technique was designed by Bruce Schneier "to be immune to linear and differential cryptanalysis (Staron and Adams, 2001)." Ellipse Curve Cryptosystems (ECC) is similar to RSA in terms of providing both digital signature and encryption. By using properties of elliptic curves, ECC "provide ways of constructing groups of elements and specific rules on how the elements within these groups combine. One differing factor of ECC is its efficiency since it could work with limited processing capacity, storage supply, and bandwidth (Harris, 2003)," which makes it a good solution for wireless and mobile technologies."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Harris, Shon. All-in-One CISSP Certification Exam Guide (2nd ed.). Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2003.
• McClure, Stuart, Scambray, Joel and Kurtz, George. Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions (3rd ed.). Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001.
• Pritikin, Max. RSA and ECC 801.1AR. Retrieved from the IEEE database. 23 January 2007. 05 February 2007. <http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2007/ar-pritikin-rsa-ecc-012207.pdf>.
• Rothke, Ben. Crypto: RSA vs. ECC. Retrieved from the Information Security Magazine database. 1998. 05 February 2007. <http://infosecuritymag.techtarget.com/articles/1998/augcrypto.shtml>.
• Staron, Dick and Adams, Maureen. Security Complete. Alameda, CA: Sybex, 2001.

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