§§ 5.1-4, due Oct 2

1. (Difficulty) The most difficult part of the reading was following along when they reversed the AES system in § 5.3. Well, specifically, reversing the order of ARK (add round key) and IMC (inverse mixcolumn transform). It's not too bad, it's just multiplying by the right matrix at the right time, but still, it takes a little bit of thought.
2. (Reflective) Hmmm... I am interested by this encryption method simply because it just looks like a big mish-mash of all the different, simple techniques applied to bytes. When talking about the design considerations in § 5.4, each part of each round seemed to have been included simply to thwart a certain type of attack. I wonder if this was actually their process.