Ah, I see.  Thanks!

On Jul 8, 2015, at 6:00 PM, Michael Hamburg <[email protected]> wrote:

> The Montgomery ladder can take advantage of mixed differential addition, 
> where R+Q is computed with the additional information that R-Q is equal to 
> the base point P.  (It’s called “mixed” because R and Q are in projective 
> form, but P is affine.)  Unlike ordinary addition, differential addition can 
> be computed using just the x-coordinates of P, Q and R.  So can doubling.  
> Therefore, you can compute the whole ladder using only x coordinates.  You 
> can recover y at the end, but usually people don’t.
> 
> This pair of operations — x-only mixed differential addition and doubling — 
> is significantly faster and simpler on a Montgomery curve than on a short 
> Weierstrass curve.  The same is not true of the ordinary addition and 
> doubling formulas.  This is why Montgomery curves are used for ECDH, but not 
> usually other operations.
> 
> You can take advantage of the same technique on a short Weierstrass curve, 
> using for example co-z coordinates.  But it’s not as simple or fast as on a 
> Montgomery curve.  Furthermore, while the mixed differential addition law is 
> unified on a Montgomery curve, it is not unified on a short Weierstrass 
> curve.  This makes it noticeably harder to start the ladder.
> 
> — Mike
> 
>> On Jul 8, 2015, at 5:11 PM, Ron Garret <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> Could you please elaborate on this, or point me to a reference?  According 
>> to:
>> 
>> https://choucroutage.com/Papers/SideChannelAttacks/ches-2002-joye.pdf
>> 
>> the Montgomery ladder “is of full generality and applies to any abelian 
>> group.”
>> 
>> Is it really the ladder that is more efficient for Montgomery curves, or is 
>> it just the point addition and doubling operations that are more efficient?
>> 
>> rg
>> 
>> On Jul 8, 2015, at 4:05 PM, Michael Hamburg <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> The Montgomery ladder is significantly simpler and more efficient on 
>>> Montgomery curves than on short Weierstrass curves.
>>> 
>>>> On Jul 8, 2015, at 3:38 PM, Ron Garret <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> “Montgomery curves are attractive because of the ladder method of scalar 
>>>> multiplication”
>>>> 
>>>> Is this actually true?  I was under the impression that the Montgomery 
>>>> ladder was applicable to any kind of elliptic curve.  They just both 
>>>> happen to have been invented by Peter Montgomery.
>>>> 
>>>> rg
>>>> 
>>>> On Jul 7, 2015, at 8:12 PM, Tony Arcieri <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I made this poster for the DEFCON Crypto and Privacy Village. It's 
>>>>> intended for audiences of mixed ability levels:
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://i.imgur.com/hwbSRHh.png
>>>>> 
>>>>> Would appreciate technical feedback on it. If you'd like to suggest copy 
>>>>> changes, please consider design constraints (i.e. available room on the 
>>>>> page).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Tony Arcieri
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Curves mailing list
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>> https://moderncrypto.org/mailman/listinfo/curves
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Curves mailing list
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>>>> https://moderncrypto.org/mailman/listinfo/curves
>>> 
>> 
> 

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