Sec 8.1 - 8.2 due May 14

What was difficult

Due to my previous exposure to hashing algorithm the concept as a whole was easy to follow. following the explanation of the discrete log hash functions was hard, being that I am still a bit fuzzy with the whole idea of discrete logarithm.


Reflections

I have previous exposure to the use of hash algorithms for data signatures. At my job at Aerospace I worked in the Trusted Computer Systems lab. One of my focuses was learning about viruses and hacks as well as virus protection programs such as Sophos or Norton. The way virus detection works is via checking for signatures that match viral signatures. When you anti virus software does update on viruses it is updating its signature library to include recently discovered viruses. It is cool how you can check to see if something is a virus, much faster then looking through the whole document.