Design and implement a small security application built on top

Project description

In this project, you are required to design and implement a small security application built on top of the DES implementation that you have just completed in Project #1. You may also wish to carry out some in- depth study of the encryption/decryption algorithm(s) to serve your research interests. Possible topics for you

to consider include, but are not limited to, the following:

(1)  Secret-key based key exchange: The goal is for two users (communication parties) to establish a shared secret key with the help of a trusted third party. Through a user interface, you need to demonstrate key establishment as well as the two users ’ sending and receiving encrypted messages using the established secret key. Some inputs through the user interface include: passwords of the two users that are shared with the trusted third party, a message (or a file) for encryption and decryption. Possible outputs from the user interface include: the shared session key (when it is successful), the message in clear and in the encrypted format at various stages of the communication.

(2)  Secure communication: The goal is to encrypt the data transferred between two or more users who are engaging in an interactive session of data exchange. Through a user interface, you need to demonstrate sending and receiving data (or files) which should be performed independently from each other during which the data (or files) must be encrypted while in transmission.

(3)  Performance comparison between DES and AES: The goal is to study the performance of encryption algorithms of the same type. The evaluation criterion is the efficiency or the length of time that it takes to complete encryption (or decryption) of a message. You need to use a set of messages of various lengths to demonstrate a set of results or the trend in order for you to reach the conclusion.

(4)  Performance  comparison  between DES  and  RSA: The goal is to  study the performance  of the encryption algorithms of different types, e.g., secret key and public key based algorithms. Again, the evaluation criterion is the efficiency or the length of time that it takes to complete encryption (or decryption) of a message. You need to use a set of messages of various lengths to demonstrate a set of results or the trend in order for you to reach a conclusion.

(5)  Your own choice: The purpose is to work on something of your own choice as long as it is related to what you did in Project #1 with comparable effort.

Requirements

There is no specific requirement on the development environment or tools that you may use to complete this project. As the outcome of this project, you are required to:

(1)  clearly describe the goal of your work as well as the design.

(2)  implement the application.

(3)  design and implement a user-friendly interface to demonstrate the usability of your application.

For research-oriented work, it is critical to describe your research method, the amount of effort spent in the experiment and the presentation of the concluding results.

Deliverables

(1)  Source code of your implementation (soft copy);

(2)  A report describing the architecture, design and the implementation of the application itself as well as the user interface or the experiment and the conclusion (soft copy);   

(3)  A video demonstrating the use of your software as well as the corresponding results.