Month: March 2016

About nine months ago, Nigerians both at home and around the world challenged “Dr” Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to show us his PhD Thesis and certificate. To our consternation, nothing was forthcoming. A human rights organisation even wrote the University of Portharcourt to verify the status of “Dr” Jonathan, using the Freedom of Information Act, but to no avail.

In the meantime, those of us who challenged Jonathan were also challenged to show our certificates and works. I remember publishing my PhD certificate online. I also promised to share for free, a chapter from my PhD thesis (Critical Analysis of CCMP), which was published by John Wiley and Sons Ltd. Wiley Publishers currently charge about $50 to download the paper. I hereby attach the paper for CUPSIANS to download for free! If you are doing a masters degree or PhD in Cryptography or related courses, you may find this very useful.

CCMP (Counter Mode with Cipher Block Message Authentication Code Protocol) is an encryption system invented to guarantee confidentiality, authenticity and integrity for communications in WiFi environment. In fact it is the default WiFi security adapted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It is currently being used in millions of laptops and mobile devices around the world. Because it is implemented at hardware level, you as a laptop user never gets to know anything about it. Cryptographers may however know about it.

Now, part of my PhD research work under the supervision of Professor Anne James, at Coventry University UK, was to scientifically analyse the CCMP and prove that it is after all NOT secure! This attached 16 pages research paper is the actual critical analysis of the CCMP. Besides proving that the CCMP is not secure, I also had to invent a better replacement, which I did. It is called Encryption System with Keyed Integrity and Managed Oracle (ESKIMO). One day you will be using ESKIMO in your laptops without ever knowing it. This is not bragging but feel free to be proud. It is an invention made by a Nigerian.