## Book review: Nothing left to do for my phd thesis

I have just finished skimming through “Elliptic Curve Cryptography for Constrained Devices – Algorithms, Architectures and Practical Implementation” by Sandeep S. Kumar.

The guy have done software design of ECDH key exchange on an 8-bit processor, hardware/software co-design on extensions for an 8-bit processor and 32-bit processor, hardware design for optimal digit multipliers for $F_{2^{m}}$,  hardware design for ECC in the frequency domain and hardware design for tiny ECC processor over $F_{2^{m}}$!!!

He just did everything! The open problems he mentioned at the end of the book was those stuff related to optimizing power to be extremely efficient on constrained devices, thus to make it strong against the side channel attacks.

Oh well…

• #### Budi Rahardjo 7:43 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

There’s ALWAYS something to do (to improve).

A few years ago (actually, light years ago – ha ha ha) a person in the US patent office said that everything that has to be invented already invented. Well, he was wrong (back then and is wrong today!). I can smell things to improve from his work (judging by skimming his book a while ago). If you’re lucky, you may even find nifty things to explore.

Keep the spirit high…

• #### CG 8:47 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: you smell something nifty? sniff sniff… i smell nothing! 😀 heeeeeeeeeelllpppp!!!

• #### Budi Rahardjo 9:40 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

I think you have to update your roadmap(s) first. Then, we can look at things that have been done and things that we still need to explore. It doesn’t have to be a complete roadmap but a fairly decent one.

• #### CG 9:59 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: still trying to make one. things are scattered and misplaced and I’m still gathering them

• #### tetanga 6:17 pm on January 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply

makanya baca buku gak usah yang susah2 coba baca nya buku crypto yang ini aja http://www.amazon.com/Cryptoclub-Using-Mathematics-Break-Secret/dp/156881223X jadi bisa baca bareng ama shahna dan fizan

• #### CG 9:52 am on January 16, 2009 Permalink | Reply

hi hi hi hi bagus bukunya, thx 🙂

## Yes, it is implementable, but how?

Reading the third chapter of this book, I’m astonished that ECC (ECDH) is implementable on Chipcon CC1010 chip which consists of an 8-bit 8051 processor core with a built-in radio transceiver and a hardware DES engine. It containts 32 kb of flash memory for storing programs, 2048 bytes of SRAM external to the 8051 core (XRAM), and 128 bytes of internal SRAM (IRAM).

Now the question is, without using any additional extra hardware, how to build codes calculating those complex operation of ECC that fits those small memories???

[screaming in horror…]

• #### Budi Rahardjo 7:40 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

Well, if he can do it, you can too.

A few years ago, I have a student porting Linux to a constraint device; 8-bit processor with 8kB (or was it 16kB?) RAM. It worked.

I am not saying that it is easy, but it can be done.

• #### CG 8:34 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: do you have the sample of the source code of Linux ported to a constrained device? Is it in assembly?

• #### Budi Rahardjo 8:57 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

Source code Linux kan terbuka, jadi bisa dilihat. Memang ada bagian (kecil) yang bentuknya assembly, tetapi sebagian besar tetap dalam C. Compilenya dilakukan di PC dengan resource yang besar (running Linux) dengan menggunakan gcc untuk cross compile.

• #### CG 9:04 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: we definitely have to discuss more about this! and you’ve got to show me some stuff!

How much RAM do you need to implement ECC (ECDH)? Cramming the memory into 2048+128 of RAM is not really easy if you’re used to 2GB of RAM.

• #### CG 7:11 am on January 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply

@waskita: as small as possible. and i’m used to 1GB of RAM :((

## Which class to use?

This is the class structure of Crypto++ Library

And then when I’m going to implement PK_Encryptor, which one to use???

Which base class to use, when to implement, what scheme to choose? Still not clear which are the abstract classes. This library is superb but makes my head going to explode 😀

• #### Budi Rahardjo 10:57 pm on December 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply

Unfortunately, I can’t tell just by looking at the pictures. Gotta dig deeper into the library, which I don’t have. ha ha ha.

I suspect you have choices (of classes to use). Which one to choose? Well, I guess you have to understand all of them (at least at superficial level – why there are more than one ways to do it) or pick one and hope that it is the best for case at hand. 😀 ha ha ha.

• #### CG 2:36 am on December 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: actually I already have examples of “optimal” implementation and i was digging out to find out how to implement it differently and trying to figure out the structure of the classes and surprised that the library provides tons of classes i don’t understand!

## phd student on vacation

Finally back to coding, in some short precious time during the day after finishing domestic chores. This phd student is being a bit distracted during the holiday, but this site really helps her to compile some codes on using ECC encryption using Crypto++ Library. Hope this will be a good start heading to somewhere, at least it is a good thing she still can do some research while she’s away from the lab 🙂

One more week left for holiday, and still haven’t finished so many things. I’m not going to write the to do list here, it’s too depressing!

• #### Budi Rahardjo 2:55 am on December 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply

It’s a holiday. Take a break. I don’t even want to know that I have a to do list 😀 (pretending that there is no such things as a to do list). Don’t worry, you’ll be back (busy coding) in no time.

• #### mehobbes 5:34 am on December 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply

to do list:
1. compile some codes
2. post here
3. go back on vacation 😀

• #### minhan 1:12 pm on March 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply

Hi,I am from China,welcome to my space.

## Newcomers to the bookshelf :)

Forgot to post an update about me shopping some books, really cool ones 🙂

2. A very detail and theoritical book about elliptic curves: “Elliptic Curves – Number Theory and Cryptography” – Lawrence C. Washington

3. The most related book to be the reference of my phd thesis: “Elliptic Curve Cryptography for Constrained Devices – Algorithms, Architectures and Practical Implementations” – Sandeep S. Kumar

Happy holiday, everybody.

I’m going to spend the holiday with my new buddies 😉

• #### Budi Rahardjo 7:13 pm on December 26, 2008 Permalink | Reply

Waaahhh … iri …
Buku baru selalu membuat iri 😀

• #### CG 7:15 pm on December 26, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: hey, you’ve got to read them too and help me to understand and finish my phd 😀

• #### mehobbes 5:39 am on December 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply

the first one is a “bible” ?
hmmmm, oke, a must have ECC book isn’t, it.

## Proposal Revision has been submitted

Yeaay. Done with the revision.

Now move on to other things. Reading books on chip design, high-level synthesis,  marking students’ assignments, coding and documenting papers and testing the libraries and trying to produce a paper as soon as possible.

And working! Yes, still got those traslating job and clerical works.

Yes, let’s do it.

• #### Budi Rahardjo 5:30 am on December 20, 2008 Permalink | Reply

Horeee…
One step at a time. Maju teruuusss…

• #### CG 3:32 pm on December 20, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: terimakasih! udah lengkap amunisi nih! buku-buku, library, mac, otak, semangat, dan a good advisor! bantuin bikin road map yang 3 domain itu ya 😉

• #### CG 5:04 am on December 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply Tags: Books ( 3 ), design ( 2 ), high-level syntesis chip, phd life ( 66 ), system

Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Yes, I’m actually reading this book. Have gone skimming the whole book yesterday, with the help of some expert guy who did his dissertation on this subject 😀

I can’t believe I finally have to deal with this hardware designing stuff! But I need to, to give me a broader idea about ECC implementation and how to design a well-performed orchestra, in terms of hardware an software.

And it gives me a certain feeling of “proudness”, being a “real” electrical engineering student, hwahahahaha 🙂

• #### Budi Rahardjo 8:16 am on December 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply

Yeah, it’s a good book. I hope it is useful in your research.

• #### CG 8:23 am on December 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@BR: thx for lending me the book and the two other books. but the most important is thank you for explaining the whole book 🙂
yes it is a big help for my research!

## How to make a table with multirows in Lyx

Another trivial technical tips I need to post for my own reference whenever I forgot about these seem-to-be-not-important things.

If you want to make a table with multirows like this in Lyx:

things won’t be as easy as creating tables with multicolumn. Lyx won’t allow you to right click and check the “multicolumn” option on the preference window.

Here’s how:

1. You have to insert these command in LATEX on the table like this:

this command

`\multirow{4}{0.5cm}{the text goes here}`

means that we set a multirow that consists of 4 rows with 0,5cm width and “the text goes here” as the text

2. Insert another scripts in the document’s preamble:

3. And there you go! A multirow table.

An official tutorial from Lyx here.

## Revising Proposal

Still working on the proposal. Revising the whole outline, adding more details on basic theories, trying to make a more focus description about the research targets, restructuring the flow etc, etc…

The deadline is Dec 19th, 2008 but my target is the proposal has to be ready on Dec 16th to be submitted to all the academic supervisors.

• #### aprilw 3:35 pm on December 11, 2008 Permalink | Reply

chik, just want to ask, seberapa detailkah proposal yg dibuat? hmm … spt.nya sudah banyak versi ya. Apakah proposal ini hampir selevel dng disertasi? Aku blm pernah bikin proposal selama di sini, proposal penelitianku cuma ada waktu aku ‘ngelamar beasiswa dulu, itu pun skr sudah berubah topiknya krn terlalu sulit, nggak mungkin dikerjain selama 3 thn. Prof.ku yg ngasih opsi, mau ngerjain yg mana, kubilang terserah beliau. Akhirnya beliau yang nentuin yg disesuaikan dng waktu dan kemampuanku.

• #### CG 5:00 am on December 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@aprilw: proposalnya lumayan detil mbak, harus mencakup garis besar penelitian yang akan dilakukan. jadi harus udah ada hipotesis dan metoda penelitian yang jelas serta tujuan dan target kontribusi.

di ujian kualifikasi akan dievaluasi apakah proposal ini cukup untuk dijadikan disertasi, dan bisa diselesaikan dan sanggupkah si mhs melakukan riset mandiri untuk menyelesaikannya?

memang biasanya ada dua opsi ya mbak, bawa topik sendiri atau diberi oleh promotor/profesor. kalau chika sempat mengajukan sendiri, kemudian diarahkan oleh para promotor.

• #### aprilw 7:44 am on December 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

ujian kualifikasinya kapan ya chik? (sorry, udah pernah diposting nggak ya sama chika?)

• #### CG 8:18 am on December 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

@aprilw: udah mbak, tanggal 5 kmarin. udah di posting di sini 😀

• #### aprilw 11:05 am on December 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

hihihi, udah lewat ya, tinggal revisi2 aja ya … sukses deh

## My Research Analogy

I have posted some thoughts about my research to my less-strict and less-formal personality blogs here and here.

Enjoy 😉

• #### Milena 2:17 pm on December 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

ph.d researcher? me,too:)
http://www.phdcomics.com, have a look!
Milena
http://www.milenamoraru.wordpress.com

• #### mehobbes 3:12 am on December 8, 2008 Permalink | Reply

great idea!
how did you get this analogy?

c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r