MA 479 / CSSE 479: Cryptography
Research Proposal

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
A joint effort of the
Department of Mathematics
and the Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering
Spring term, 2003-2004

Assignment:

Write a Research Proposal.

Topic:

an idea inspired by any of the Cryptography talks except your own.

Reader:

Dr. Joshua Holden, Project Director for the (imaginary) Cryptography section of the National Science Foundation. In particular, assume that Dr. Holden is an expert in Cryptography who is familiar with all the papers presented at the talks.

Goals of the Research Proposal:

• Present an idea for future research.
  
  
• Give a clear statement of the problem you would solve.
  
  
• Present an adequate background. (You may want to cite the article from the talk that inspired your proposal.)
  
  
• Convince the reader that the idea is worthy of funding.
  
  
• You don’t have to convince the reader to fund cryptography. Rather, convince the reader that of the limited funds available for research on cryptography, this work is worthwhile.
  
  
• Worthiness can be based on eventual practical use and/or furthering our basic understanding of science.
  
  
• Convince the reader that you have ideas for how to attack the problem.
  
  
• This is hard.
  
  
• Be as specific as you can.

Guidelines:

• Two to five pages (single-spaced).
  
  
• This is an individual assignment, but feel free to discuss your ideas with others, especially the person(s) who presented the paper(s) that sparked your idea.