
Chapter 12
Elliptic curves and cryptosystems
This chapter will introduce:
• Elliptic curves over the reals: points arithmetic and the associated
group.
• Different coordinate representations of elliptic curves and their points.
• Elliptic curves over finite fields, including point counting.
• Elliptic curve cryptosystems, including the El Gamal system and the
Menezes–Vanstone variation.
• Signature schemes using elliptic curves.
• An introduction to pairing-based protocols using elliptic curves.
Although e lliptic curves and their associated mathematics have been stud-
ied intensively for a long time—for example they are central to Andrew Wiles’
proof of