With the coming of the Information age, the Internet, local area/wide area networking, the data superhighway blah blah blah, the time has come to seriously consider the impact of the availability/accessibility of so much data. One issue that immediately arises is that of security. As things stand it is incredibly easy for a malicious outsider to access these data resources, to eavesdrop, to tamper, and to destroy. The mechanisms to defend our communications and data are available, but are only rarely applied, one reason being that security has the common side-effect of inconvenience for the honest user.
One important security mechanism is Cryptology, the art of securing data and communications, using a secret key. (Note that Cryptology has a unique role in the history of Computer Applications - it was the first!).
Main research areas:
1.
Efficient software for Cryptographic applications. This is my personal area of
speciality. In particular I maintain the popular MIRACL
software library.
2.
Elliptic curve Cryptosystems
3.
Pairing-based Cryptography
4.
Security for Wireless Sensor Networks.
Dr.
Scott and his students are currently involved in several projects:-
An
SFI funded project to set new records for solving the discrete logarithm
problem, with particular emphasis on the type of discrete logarithm problem
that can arise in pairing-based cryptography. Only by setting such records can
we know the size of numbers we need to use to obtain security. This project
involves 2 Ph.D. students Manuel Charlemagne and Naomi Benger..
The
SFI has funded the Shannon Institute http://www.shannoninstitute.ie/,
of which Dr. Scott is a member. From this source he has recuited
a full time postdoctoral reseacher (Dr. Amy Johnstone, ex US National Security Agency), and a Ph.D.
student Ezekiel Kachisa. They are mainly involved in
the development of new ideas in pairing-based cryptography.
The
Faculty funds a Ph.D. student Piotr Szczechowiak to look into the area of security for wireless sensor
networks. This has been assisted by a visiting Ph.D. student Leonardo Oliviera from
Another
IRCSET funded Ph.D. Neil Costigan student is looking
into the development of fast methods of cryptography for new multi-core processors,
as used for example in the new Playstation 3.
A Ph.D. student Luis Perez, funded by the Mexican Government, is investigating the development of tools which would generate optimal code for the implementation of some methods of public key cryptography.
November, 2007