Improvements to the Linear Operations of LowMC: A Faster Picnic

Picnic is a practical approach to digital signatures where the security is primarily based on the existence of a one-way function, and the signature size strongly depends on the number of multiplications in the circuit describing that one-way function. The highly parameterizable block cipher family LowMC has the most competitive properties with respect to this metric and is hence a standard choice. In this paper, we study various options for efficient implementations of LowMC in-depth. First, we investigate optimizations of the round key computation of LowMC independently of any implementation optimizations. By decomposing the round key computations based on the keys\u27 effect on the S-box layer and general optimizations, we reduce runtime costs by up to a factor of 2 and furthermore reduce the size of the LowMC matrices by around 45% compared to the original Picnic implementation (CCS\u2717). Second, we propose two modifications to the remaining matrix multiplication in LowMC\u27s linear layer. The first modification decomposes the multiplication into parts depending on the their effect on the S-box layer. While this requires the linear layer matrices to have an invertible submatrix, it reduces the runtime and memory costs significantly, both by up to a factor of 4 for instances used by Picnic and up to a factor of 25 for LowMC instances with only one S-box. The second modification proposes a Feistel structure using smaller matrices completely replacing the remaining large matrix multiplication in LowMC\u27s linear layer. With this approach, we achieve an operation count logarithmic in the block size but more importantly, improve over Picnic\u27s matrix multiplication by 60% while retaining a constant-time algorithm. Furthermore, this technique also enables us to reduce the memory requirements for storing LowMC matrices by 60%

Chapter 6 Prevention and stigma

This chapter investigates the use of quarantine as an instrument of social control and as dispositive for the construction and stigmatization of the Muslim ‘other’. The study takes the under-researched case of the Hajj to Mecca from the Balkans, hence focusing on Muslims from Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina (the latter under Austrian-Hungarian rule as from 1878). Both Bosnian and Bulgarian Muslim pilgrims experienced quarantine on their return from Mecca, yet in unequal measures. Bosnian hajjis were given a more lenient quarantine than their Bulgarian co-religionists by their separate sanitary authorities – with regard to the duration of isolation and the disinfection of their bodies and personal belongings. This was due to the different political and cultural attitudes towards their Muslim minorities by these two Balkan regimes

Democracy as an ethnically closed event: Political pluralism and the disintegration of Yugoslavia

The article describes how the system-crisis in Yugoslavia led to the first multi-party elections in the different republics and in its last consequence to the disintegration of the state. The Serbian communists around Slobodan Milosevic were the first to blame the other non-Serbian peoples for this crisis. This in turn fostered the election of nationalistic leaders in the other republics and finally resulted in war because of the incompatibility of the different national aspirations. The author also depicts the further political development in the different Yugoslav republics under the circumstances of nationalism, multi-party systems and the war. As an underlying reason for the disintegration of the multi-ethnic Yugoslav federation and the outburst of nationalist populism the author emphasizes, among other things, the existence of an atomized society, characterized by collective submissiveness during the communist and pre-communist era, the lack of urbanisation, of civil society structures and the total absence of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, a coming to terms with the past, mainly concerning the wide-spread massacres between 1941 and 1945.The article describes how the system-crisis in Yugoslavia led to the first multi-party elections in the different republics and in its last consequence to the disintegration of the state. The Serbian communists around Slobodan Milosevic were the first to blame the other non-Serbian peoples for this crisis. This in turn fostered the election of nationalistic leaders in the other republics and finally resulted in war because of the incompatibility of the different national aspirations. The author also depicts the further political development in the different Yugoslav republics under the circumstances of nationalism, multi-party systems and the war. As an underlying reason for the disintegration of the multi-ethnic Yugoslav federation and the outburst of nationalist populism the author emphasizes, among other things, the existence of an atomized society, characterized by collective submissiveness during the communist and pre-communist era, the lack of urbanisation, of civil society structures and the total absence of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, a coming to terms with the past, mainly concerning the wide-spread massacres between 1941 and 1945

Chapter 6 Prevention and stigma

This chapter investigates the use of quarantine as an instrument of social control and as dispositive for the construction and stigmatization of the Muslim ‘other’. The study takes the under-researched case of the Hajj to Mecca from the Balkans, hence focusing on Muslims from Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina (the latter under Austrian-Hungarian rule as from 1878). Both Bosnian and Bulgarian Muslim pilgrims experienced quarantine on their return from Mecca, yet in unequal measures. Bosnian hajjis were given a more lenient quarantine than their Bulgarian co-religionists by their separate sanitary authorities – with regard to the duration of isolation and the disinfection of their bodies and personal belongings. This was due to the different political and cultural attitudes towards their Muslim minorities by these two Balkan regimes

Prevention and stigma: the sanitary control of Muslim pilgrims from the Balkans, 18301914

(VLID)283034

Combating Cholera during the Balkan Wars: The Case of Bulgaria

(VLID)436308