Elliptic curve cryptography: Java implementation issues

Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is based in one of the hardest arithmetic problems, the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, making ECC a reliable cryptographic technique. In addition to this advantage, ECC requires shorter keys compared to other public key algorithms, which suggests its use in low-end systems such as smart cards because of its efficiency and limited hardware requirements. Currently the leading smart card technology is Java card. Though both Java 2 standard edition (J2SE) 5.0 and Java card (JC) 2.2.1 include classes and interfaces making ECC available to Java programs, they are not complete, making it necessary to use additional, non-standard packages if the programmer wants to use ECC for different operations (digital signature, data encryption and decryption, etc.). In the present work, we provide a complete review of the state of the art of ECC in J2SE and Java card, with a complete list of operations available in both standard implementations and proprietary packages.