Announcements and Special Information

4/27 – The following persons have completed their "In the News" assignments: Brown, Campeggio, Clauss,

Garretson, Patel, Vagnozzi. If your name is not on that list, then - according to my records - you

are missing at least one assignment.

4/20 – For Project #2 you will need this list of 5 letter words. This is the same list as found in the folder you downloaded earlier.

4/19b – Detailed algorithms for Components 3 & 4 have been posted and can be accessed via the assignment page.

4/19 – Detailed algorithms for Components 1 & 2 have been posted and can be accessed via the assignment page.

4/16 – It is easier to read mixed data type info all on one line when the file is produced using Write instead of Print.

Because of that I have produced two new files for Components 4 & 5. They can be accessed from the

project web pages.

4/15 – Don't forget there will be graded oral reports on Tuesday on the "In the News" readings.

4/12 – Here is a job possibility:

Dear Mr. Bateman and Ms. Yoder;

Could you be so kind as to forward this e-mail to the fine members 
of the Mathematics/CIS department?  I'd appreciate it greatly.  
Thanks.  Take care.

Attention Math/CIS faculty;

The Keystone is looking for a new webmaster, someone familiar 
with ASP would be ideal, but anyone with even a passing 
acquaintance is welcome, too.  This is a paid position, and doesn't 
require a great deal of time or commitment.  The job has few 
requirements—weekly updates of the newspaper's website.  If you 
know of any students who might be interested, or would be a good 
fit, please advise them to send in a letter of intent—they can e-mail 
it to this address, or drop off a hardcopy at MSU 194—by 5 p.m. on 
Monday, April 18.  Then, all they need do is attend elections that 
Monday at 7 p.m.  Thanks for your time and consideration.  Take 
care, and have a great week.

-Sincerely,
Domenick P. Moore
Editor-in-Chief
The Keystone

4/7 – The test data for components 1, 2 & 3 is ready. You can access it via the main project page or from the

assignment page.

3/31 – You may recall my reference to GIMPS. Check out this article.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/217861_prime29.html

3/23 – I will be posting several approaches to doing Components 4 & 5. For the very adventurous, you may want to

try writing code to do large integer arithmetic from scratch. Here are some algorithms for that posted

several years ago: http://faculty.kutztown.edu/rieksts/341-Sp02/projects/largersa/main.html

– CipherText #4 has now been posted.

– A program containing all the necessary large integer functions along with pseudocode for large integer

RSA encryption has been posted. In class Thursday I will explain how this program can be used to

do Component #4 of the project.

– A program to convert bits to very long integers (max length is 200 bits) has also been posted. Although it

appears to work correctly, it has not been thoroughly tested. Please let me know if you encounter any

problems using it.

– With all the additional information, you may want to check the assignment page once again, as I have tried

to place all the new information on that page.

3/21 – The due date for Project #2 has been changed to March 29.

– Please notice the change in component #2 from 10 bits to 9 bits and the other assignment changes.

– Plain & cipher texts as well as programs to help in reading & converting have been posted.

They can be accessed from the main RSA page.

3/15 – Please see job announcement below.

Please announce in your upper-level classes.

SunGard Pentamation in Bethlehem, Pa has three positions available for
programmers. The requirement is a BS in CS. Knowledge in most of the
following VB, asp, java scripts, vb scripts, xml, html .net, and sql
server would be beneficial. The software used is Microsoft based, so any
experience with VB 6, .net, asp, vb scripts, java scripts, and web
applications will be beneficial to the applicant.

Interested candidates should send an email to Michael Yates at
yatesmic@pentamation.com.

3/2 – Just in case you did not receive the email I sent out yesterday morning, since our class was cancelled due to

inclement weather, the midterm exam has been postponed until after the break.

2/28 – The values posted for d under Components 2 & 3 were incorrect. They have now been corrected.

2/22 – The slides from Chapter 5 of Tjaden's book which you need to study for the upcoming quiz are: 1 → 9; 29 → 31; 33 → 34; 56 → 57. This is, of course, in addition to all the other material that we have gone over since the first quiz.

2/15 – Detailed encoding & decoding algorithms for RSA have been posted. Also sample encoding and decoding programs.

2/14 – For the remainder of the semester I will be coming in most Mondays and plan to be in my office between 1 & 4 pm.

2/2 – Algorithms for Component 2 & Component 3 have been posted.

A quiz is scheduled for next Tuesday. Some study material has been posted here. You are already aware of

the study sheets on Security Fundamentals and MAS. As I have time, I will try to post material based on

the power point slides from Chapters 1 & 2 of Tjaden.

1/30 – Please read this ZDNet article on software bug reporting.

1/26 – To clear up confusion - the * by a date on the Upcoming page does NOT mean that a quiz is scheduled for that date. If a quiz is listed on that page, it will be a very specific reference. Since we are spending our class time discussing the project, I have pushed back the study of the text and testing on textbook material for a few days.