Pi Mu Epsilon - Mathematical Association of America

Thursday MAA Session #13 August 2, 2012
MAA Session #13
Room: Meeting Room M
4:00P.M. – 6:15P.M.
4:00–4:15
Is Elliptic Curve Cryptography Secure
Mehak Sandhu and Gonzalo Landeros
Benedictine University
Several public key cryptographic methods like the Diffie-Hellman key exchange and the ElGamal
cryptosystem are based on the Discrete Logarithm problem. If we try to solve the DLP using the
trial and error method, it takes exponential time. There are faster ways to solve the DLP in Fp ∗ with
multiplication, however the best known algorithm is subexponential. The DLP problem for elliptic
curves (ECDLP) is believed to be even more difficult; using the currently known algorithms it takes
exponential time to solve this problem. Therefore companies like BlackBerry use Elliptic Curve
Cryptography in some of their operations. But the cat and mouse game of crypto goes on. Recently
in April 2012 there was a paper that challenges the statement that there is no subexponential
algorithm to solve the ECDLP. In this expository work we attempt to understand the underlying
mathematics behind some of these techniques in the rapidly evolving field of cryptology.
4:20–4:35
Star Studded Mathematics
Mark Kleehammer
SUNY Fredonia
In this talk we will explore the interior angle sum of stars. We will look at complete stars and apply
the results to prove Barbier’s Theorem for Reuleaux Polygons.
There may be abstracts for this session received too late to appear in print.
Please refer to the MAA Student web page at:
http://www.maa.org/mathfest/students.cfm
for presenters’ names, talk titles, and abstracts.
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