The design and implementation of fast algorithms related to Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) over the field GF( p), such as modular addition, modular subtraction, point addition, point production, choice of embedding plaintext to a point, etc. are given. A practical software library has been produced which supports variable length implementation of the ECC-based ElGamal cryptosystem. More importantly, this scalable architecture of the design enables the ECC being used in restricted platforms as well as high-end servers based on Intel Pentium CPU. Applications such as electronic commerce security, data encryption communication, etc. are thus made possible for real time and effective ECC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]