How to develop cryptosystems that utilize minimal resources to get maximum security.

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The reviewer who claims to have worked in ECC for 10 years, but is still looking for a good intro, wasn't paid enough to write a favorable review of this book! My recommendation: pick up a copy of Seroussi/Blake/Smart today and wait for a sale, if you must, on Koblitz, Silverman and Menezes. All of these are excellent works by knowledgeable, well-respected mathematicians.

20 of 24 found the following review helpful:

A Worthy EffortFeb 10, 1999

Elliptic Curve is the preeminent public key solution for cryptographic problems that are highly constrained in space or time.

This is the only well rounded book I have seen on EC and for such a rarefied topic the author crafts a highly readable account. For that reason I give it 5 stars. Frankly, my jaw dropped when I first spotted this book. I would reccommend this, for the most part, to security architects & developers; those with backgrounds in electrical engineering or applied math will benefit the most. I must also highly commend the author's emphasis on the pertinant IEEE standard(s).

Now... having said all those nice things, I can let loose with a few paint balls. The book inks some rather gargantuan performance claims that I expect will lead folks to some unsustainable conclusions about what is possible in the real world.

The performance of EC and/vs RSA is one area about which I happen to know more than your average circus bear. I have designed and built time constrained systems based on both EC and RSA...and I have scrutinized every aspect of the performance of the underlying cryptographic toolkits down to the milli-second. Bottom line: The raw performance of EC is no substitute for the high craft, skill and insight you apply to the design of your protocols and your systems.

Even after this book, it is possible to, unwittingly, design an EC based system that performs worse than its RSA twin.

Cheers, Robert Walker

7 of 10 found the following review helpful:

Good for engineers, as the title saysMar 04, 2001
By Amir Helzer
The book allowed me to gain fair understanding of ECC principles in a matter of hours. It would be difficult to understand without having taken a previous course in cryptography, but if you already have some idea of numbers theory, and you need to get a quick feel of ECC this would be a good place to start. The continued focus on implementation is important to me (being someone who would eventually have to do it). I would add a summary to each section, describing what EXACTLY needs to be done for each operation - less words, more math.

Good selection of topics, but...Oct 05, 2009
By Neal J. King
an inconsistent level of explanation. The author does not seem to have a definite idea of what is to be assumed, so his explanations are a bit patchy. In some places, he goes into a lot of detail on the calculational techniques; but in others, his presentation is fuzzy even on the concepts.

I suspect that this book has most to offer on the practical implementation issues, which are highlighted in the title; but it is not sufficient as a stand-alone presentation even on the implementation, not to speak of the conceptual structure & approach, of Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Maybe the author enjoys mathematics, but he's clearly not a mathematician.

This book would best serve as a guide to practical implementation for someone who has already developed a good idea of how ECC is supposed to work.

7 of 12 found the following review helpful:

Full of good, helpful informationFeb 23, 2001
By Dr. Lee D. Carlson
This book is the first I have read on elliptic curves that actually attempts to explain just how they are used in cryptography from a practical standpoint. It does not attempt to prove the many interesting properties of elliptic curves but instead concentrates on the computer code that one might use to put in place an elliptic curve cryptosystem. The code the author admits could be done in many other ways, but the one he chose I think does its job in instructing the reader just how to implement elliptic curves in cryptography. Indeed, his implementation of large integer math routines is very clear and points out the difference in using a (high level) language like C versus doing the same in Assembly. The only minus to the book from a didactic standpoint are the subroutine schematics that permeate the book. These could have been omitted without any serious damage to understanding what is going on. Readers who need a more rigorous introduction to the mathematics can go to the (immense) literature on elliptic curves. A fine book, and definitely worth reading to gain a practial understanding of elliptic curve cryptosystems.

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