The PALO ALTO project brings together researchers in mathematics, computer algebra and architecture, members of the Fourier Institute, of the Laboratoire Jean Kuntzmann (Applied Maths) and of the Laboratoire d'Informatique in Grenoble, France.

In recent years, a lot of research has focused on algebraic (elliptic, hyperelliptic) curves. A particular attention has been brought to their different representations. Simultaneously many softwares have been developped to handle finite field and integer arithmetic taking into account the main features of CPU's fast numerical routines (SSE, etc) and the hierarchical model (cache levels etc.). Those softwares also include in general tools for efficient cryptanalysis (exact linear algebra, etc.).

Two contributions of the PALO ALTO project are the development of a library for cryptology on curves and of a cryptanalysis toolbox. We particularly focus on fixed point precision arithmetic, finite field arithmetic, arithmetic on curves and on algorithms for exact linear algebra, discrete logarithms, and will design the library with the GPU or FPGA as target architectures.