MAT 312 : Applied Algebra

Computer Projects


The first project is to decipher a message which has been encoded with the RSA public-key algorithm. You are given both the base and the exponent needed to decipher the message. You can read the project online, but since it requires you to work with integers of more than 200-digits, you will probably find it much more convenient to use a symbolic system such as Maple (available in all of the SINC sites on campus). So, here is the project as a Maple Worksheet. (Note that your browser probably is not set up to allow you to just click on this link. Instead, click the right mouse button on it, select "Save Link to File...", and then start Maple, telling it open the file you just saved.)

In the second project, you are given another message, encoded with a poor choice of the base, which is easily "cracked". Your job is to crack the message by determining the base. As in the first one, you can read the project online, but using the Maple Worksheet is almost certainly the only way to actually do the project.

You might want to take a look at some notes on implementing RSA in Maple. This is what was used to encode the message.