Elliptic Curve Cryptography: The Serpentine Course of a Paradigm Shift

Ann Hibner Koblitz; Neal Koblitz; Alfred Menezes

Paper 2008/390

Elliptic Curve Cryptography: The Serpentine Course of a Paradigm Shift

Ann Hibner Koblitz, Neal Koblitz, and Alfred Menezes

Abstract

Over a period of sixteen years elliptic curve cryptography went from being an approach that many people mistrusted or misunderstood to being a public key technology that enjoys almost unquestioned acceptance. We describe the sometimes surprising twists and turns in this paradigm shift, and compare this story with the commonly accepted Ideal Model of how research and development function in cryptography. We also discuss to what extent the ideas in the literature on "social construction of technology" can contribute to a better understanding of this history.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Public-key cryptography
Publication info: Published elsewhere. Also available at http://anotherlook.ca
Contact author(s): ajmeneze @ uwaterloo ca
History: 2011-08-15: last of 3 revisions; 2008-09-15: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2008/390
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2008/390,
      author = {Ann Hibner Koblitz and Neal Koblitz and Alfred Menezes},
      title = {Elliptic Curve Cryptography: The Serpentine Course of a Paradigm Shift},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2008/390},
      year = {2008},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2008/390}
}