This week, we learned about various techniques to improve research paper comprehension, writing, and reading as well as different aspects/careers in research. Both the RCR training and project selection concluded, and we have finished an outline for our project website.

• Went through chapters 8-11 of Intro to Cryptography (only the required portions)

  • Learned about block ciphers, more specifically DES and Rijndael.

  • Covered key agreement protocols for secret key distribution. Also learned about public key distribution algorithms like RSA.

  • Learned about the use and inner workings of hash functions.

• Reviewed Dr.Sen's abstract and compared it to ours, establishing what is necessary in a research abstract

• Attended talk about the REU experience by Mr. Kim (a former REU student) and got advice on how to navigate the program.

• Re-read/skimmed chapters and wrote summaries for ch. 1-9 of the Intro to Cryptography text book, focusing on the implementation of block ciphers like AES and DES.

• Read the articles sent by Dr.Sen

  • Also watched some Computerphile videos (channel suggested by Dr.Sen), which helped clarify a few concepts

• Met with Emily and created outline for presentation based off of the structure Dr.Sen sent us

• Completed about half of my presentation slides for Tuesday

• Updated website based off Dr.Sen's suggestions

• Did week 2 presentation

• Had meeting with Dr.Sen

  • Got feedback on our presentation

  • Discussed the plan for this week

• Did a final review of the concepts I learned in traditional cryptography - specifically asymmetric encryption

• Skim/read the lightweight cryptography reading, noting the major points of the paper

• Got new instructions from Dami to install mongoDB Community and was able to run the program.

• Met with Emily to discuss the sections we read. Deduced to main categories of the paper: lightweight cryptography and ubiquitous cryptography.

  • Confirmed with Dr.Sen if our categories were what he was looking for.

• After receiving Dr.Sen's feedback we decided to look over our sections of the paper again and identify protocols which fit the requirements of our domain. Met again later that day to share what we found.

  • We each picked 1-3 protocols from our section which we felt fit well, as well as decided on the protocol which we were going to research in depth for our week 3 presentation

• Began slides for week 3 presentation

• Did week 3 presentation

• Had meeting with Dr.Sen to review presentation and talk about goals for the week

• Read 2 papers related to current IoT network security protocols

• Emily made a list of all the protocols in google sheets - I added a few protocols and then began checking if there are implementations of them available on google.

• Messaged Dami about meeting for Wednesday. Ran the simulator to make sure everything was working properly.

• Continued researching protocols to see if they would fit parameters of our simulator

  • Read research papers related to certain protocols (e.g. NtruEncrypt, ECDH, SKINNY, etc.)

• Had weekly meeting with Dami

  • Walked us through the simulator - which was extremely helpful

  • Gave us feedback on our presentation

  • Helped clarify the parameters of our simulator, and answered questions we had about the protocols we were already looking into

• Read through the ECDH paper that Dami got me access to,. I also watched computerphile videos related to the protocol.

• Finished my portion of the slides

• Received Dami's updates for the java simulator. First I compared and contrasted the different codes as Dami recommended, then I updated the simulator accordingly.

• Analyzed implementations for ECDH and NtruEncrypt as they are both public key protocols that could be useful in our simulator

  • compared and contrasted the two in order to figure out how they could accommodate user preferences

• Had meeting with Emily, discussed tasks we needed to do for this week and talked about things we were confused about.

  • Emily shared papers relating to IoT devices performing multiple security protocols simultaneously

  • Finalized the list of protocols we were comfortable with implementing

• Registered for mid-SURE

• Had meeting with Emily

  • Discussed user preference selection process.

  • Messaged Dami about implementing ML simulator

  • Began working on our mid-term presentations, leaving a few slides empty until we get some more information from meeting with Dr.Sen on Friday

• Read through ML framework on my own this time. Wrote down lingering questions.

• Did our Midterm presentation

• Had meeting with Emily to talk about what protocols we were going to implement

  • Had a discussion on the structure for the user selection process- it will probably be a little different than what we had initially written down.

• Worked on getting the ML simulator fully functioning on my laptop

• Had meeting with Emily. Discussed our progress with the implementation, both of us are running into issues with some of our protocols.

  • I attempted to implement the new code for ECDH I found. Unfortunately, it also didn't work despite my trouble shooting, however, Emily found an implementation for NtruEncrypt, which is another lightweight public key protocol.

• Had meeting with Dami

  • Got feedback on presentation

  • She helped us with ML simulator, familiarizing us with the environment and running our code

  • Dami also sent us the cup carbon simulator to try to implement before Sunday

• Created tests for Ascon, measuring encryption and decryption time.

• Had meeting with Emily

  • Sent her my tests for Ascon

  • Worked on week 6 presentation

  • Discussed each others implementations and the results from our testing

• Started implementing the cup carbon simulator

Sunday, June 27th:

• Had a meeting with Dami to discuss cup carbon simulator/implementation - We were all essentially in the same place in terms of implementation

  • Completed installation process

• Re-structured our process diagram

• Finished up week 6 presentation with Emily.

• Was able to get cup carbon simulator fully working/installed

  • Played around/familiarized myself with the user interface, reading the instruction pdf it came with.

• Attempted to run Present protocol on my laptop. It did not work.

• Talked with Emily and decided that I would focus on the asymmetric protocols, while she focuses on symmetric.

• Walked through NtruEncrypt code, and took in depth notes about the different modes of operation

  • There are 10 different versions of the algorithm

  • Wrote out tests for NtruEncrypt - tested the different algorithms

• Compared NtruEncrypt with popular public key protocols (e.g. ECC, ECDH, RSA, etc.). Made a table of the results.

• Had meeting with Dami - Dr.Sen couldn't make the meeting so we re-scheduled

• Met with Emily and completed bar graphs for week 7 presentation - presentation was moved to Thursday

• Continued researching NtruEncrypt, and reading documentation of code to understand how it works.

• Had meeting with Dr.Sen, Dami, and Emily

  • Dr.Sen explained the cup carbon simulator and pointed out the places we needed to focus and inject our code

  • Dr.Sen also gave us our goals/timeline for the final weeks

• Tried running cup carbon simulator, and attempted fixing the issues with running the simulator

• Did week 7 presentation

• Had meeting with Dami and Emily

  • Dami was having some issues getting the simulator to run on her lap top so we tried trouble shooting with her

  • Emily and I read through the cup carbon code, and found the user interface section of the program. This will be our strating point in order to find the places we need to actually edit

  • Agreed to meet on Sunday again to talk about simulator

• Began messing with the interface of Cup Carbon, still haven't gotten simulator to properly run however.

• Helped Emily and Dami get their simulators to run by sending them the instruction I used

• Continued working with cup carbon simulator

  • Read cup carbon user guide and simulation document to learn about the sensor script code, as that is what we need to focus on editing in order to implement security -- I still can't seem to figure out where exactly we need to inject our protocols, as the code is extensive and not properly documented

• Started the final draft of the user selection guide, specifying security level, general description/benefits, and detailed description of implementations, along with proof as to why its secure.

• Had meeting with Emily and Dami

  • Discussed our experiences with the CupCarbon simulator. We were all getting the same message on the console, and are trying to figure out what it means. Dami will be messaging Dr.Sen about it

  • Dami showed us the Overleaf platform, which is where our paper will be written in IEEE format. She gave us a tutorial on how the platform worked, as well as a template for our paper.

  • Agreed to ask Dr.Sen for help as to where we should be implementing our protocols -- I messaged Dr.Sen on slack

• Implemented Emily's edits to the cup carbon simulator - she was able to change the interface to display the proper security options

  • I did run into the problems with the simulator. Although I was able to change the interface, it now no longer runs properly.

• Continued reading through Cup Carbon Code - Found a few places that could potentially be the location of sending and receiving messages.

• Read through more of the Cup Carbon user guide to get an idea of how the simulation works

• Had a meeting with Dr.Sen

  • We showed him the progress we made when it came to editing the interface

  • We also showed him the locations where we believe the messages were being sent and received - which Dr.Sen told us were incorrect

  • Dr.Sen showed us the correct .csc files and explained the abstraction process

    • We will now be spending all our efforts into implementation

  • He gave us a timeline for the last couple of days of the internship

• Met with Emily

  • Finished up poster rough draft

  • Finished final presentation

• Had meeting with Dr.Sen

  • He edited our poster - completed final draft for presenatation

  • Dr.Sen also edited our slides and gave us notes on what to emphasize during our presentation vs what to skim over given we only had 12 minutes to present

  • Discussed exit day plans and what we needed for our final deliverables