Section 4.5 - 4.8 due Sept. 22nd

(Interesting)

 I enjoyed the reading in section 4.8 on password security. I had never considered the fact that passwords would have to be encrypted to remain safe. With a better understanding of computer programming this would probably have seemed obvious, but I had not thought about how a password is stored. Passwords are so common place now on the internet, for email accounts, bank accounts, online purchases, etc. that clearly there is a need to encrypt them as well. One thing I would like to learn more about is how they prevent "Eve" from simply sending the same ciphertext to pretend to use the same password.

(Difficult)

I found the explanation on meet in the middle attacks to be the most difficult section of the reading. I understand that double encryptions with groups will not add an more security, since groups are closed under the operation. However, the meet in the middle attack seems to allow Eve to attack one key at a time, which would then reduce the possible combinations for the second key. However, I still don't see the immediate security weakness here.