Re: [freehaven-dev] a few things

[dmolnar <dmolnar@hcs.harvard.edu>]

On Sun, 20 Feb 2000, Nathan Mahn wrote:

> I'm guessing I could pick up from this: some crypto (David said this would
> be connected to C?), -> more C since I do know some of the fundamentals
> since this MUD I'm on is a very hacked version of a C lib, I'd be up for

Two things with crypto and C:

* I think Brian pointed out that we will probably use OpenSSL as our
  crypto library. Learning to use OpenSSL and learning to read the OpenSSL
  code will mean learning C/C++. You'll probably end up learning it pretty
  well, since OpenSSL doesn't have much documentation to speak of.

* IF we end up implementing someone else's algorithm not already
  implemented in OpenSSL or other libraries, then we will likely
  do it in C or C++ for performance reasons. Whoever actually does the
  implementing will also need to know enough about the algo in order to
  parse whatever spec or whatever paper we come up with which specifies
  the algorithm. Hence my infamous "just a little number theory" comment. 

  Depending on the type of algorithm, this may also involve getting to 
  know some extra libraries. For example, some friends
  of mine implemented Madhu Sudan's codes last term using a library 
  called NTL (http://www.shoup.net/ntl); it provides bignums and 
  vectors. Another possibility for bignums might be the GnuMP library. 

  We don't really want to write our own code for much of anything 
  implementing crypto. If we do end up doing so, however, working on it
  might be a good way to learn more about C and crypto; you
  likely wouldn't be working on it alone. 
  
Thanks, 
-David