For my Computer Science BSc at Loughborough University I chose to do a dissertation on RSA encryption. RSA is a public key encryption algorithm which is commonly used on the internet. I implemented the algorithm in C to encrypt text strings and simple text files.
Computer security is becoming increasingly important to companies and organisations all over the world. Computers are being used for communications between companies that may be in different cities or even different countries. These communications must be encrypted to ensure they remain secure while in transit. This project looks at the general principles of cryptography. It then focuses on RSA, a public key cryptographic algorithm. This algorithm is implemented in three stages, firstly using small numbers, to show the mathematics behind the algorithm. The second implementation extends this to using the GNU Multiple Precision Library, to allow the program to handle large numbers. The third implementation extends this further to include simple text file encryption.
The full project dissertation is available for download:
RSA Documentation [pdf | 1.9MB]