What, exactly is elliptic encryption?

[Perry E. Metzger]

Eric Hughes says:
>    From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry at imsi.com>
>    Basically, there are ways of extending public key methods into fields
>    other than the integers modulo some prime
> 
> Small correction.  While integer modulo a prime are fields (i.e. they
> have division), elliptic curve solutions only have a group structure,
> which is usually written as addition.

I stand corrected...

.pm