Crypto course

The course Fundamentals of Cryptography provide a complete introduction to modern cryptography held at JKU Linz.

The course is on Mondays, 10:15-11:45 in room S2 Z74.

Due to the current COVID situation, the lecture turns to be online. You can join by the link sent out. This link will be used during the whole semester until we can meet offline again.

Literature

The course mainly based on

• J. Katz and Y. Lindell, Introduction to modern cryptography, 2nd edition, CRC Press 2015

however the the lecture is self-contained.

Interested students can also consult with the following books:

• D. Boneh and V. Shoup, A graduate course in applied cryptography

• A. J. Menezes, P. C. van Oorschot and S. A. Vanstone, Handbook of applied cryptography

• B. Schneier, Applied cryptography, John Wiley & Sons, 1994.

• B. Schneier, Secrets and lies , John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

For historical background of cryptography:

• Simon Singh, The code book, Fourth Estate, 2002

The required background is a basic level in Algebra and Number Theory. Earlier studies in Probability theory is also welcome (but not necessary).

For mathematical background, see Chapters 2 and 4 of Handbook of applied cryptography, especially for Probability theory (Section 2.1), for Number theory (Section 2.4, including Algorithm 2.107 for Extended Euclidean algorithm) and for Primality test (Chapter 4).

Lectures

1. 04.10.2021: Informal Introduction to Security, slides

2. 11.10.2021: Formal Introduction to Cryptography, slides

3. 18.10.2021: Perfectly secret encryption, slides, Symmetric-key cryptography I. Stream ciphers, slides (corrected, extended)

4. 25.10.2021: Symmetric-key cryptography II. Block ciphers, slides (extended)

5. 08.11.2021: Symmetric-key cryptography II. Block ciphers, Symmetric-key cryptography III. Modes of operations, slides

6. 15.11.2021: Symmetric-key cryptography IV. MAC -- Messages Authentication Codes, slides

7. 22.11.2021: Symmetric-key cryptography V. Authenticated encryption, slides

8. 29.11.2021: Hash functions, slides

9. 06.12.2021: Public key cryptography I. Introduction, slides

10. 13.12.2021: Public key cryptography II, Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol and El Gamal encryption, slides

11. 10.01.2022: Public key cryptography III, RSA encryption, slides

12. 24.01.2022: Public key cryptography IV, Digital signatures, slides

13. 31.01.2022: Public key cryptography V, PGP, slides

Preliminary Contents

1. Introduction to cryptography

2. Symmetric-key cryptography I. Stream ciphers

3. Symmetric-key cryptography II. Block ciphers

4. Symmetric-key cryptography III. Modes of operation

5. Symmetric-key cryptography IV. MAC -- Messages Authentication Codes

6. Symmetric-key cryptography V. Authenticated encryption

7. Hash functions

8. Public key cryptography I., ElGamal

9. Public key cryptography II. RSA

10. Public key cryptography III. Digital signatures

Examination

Students get a grade by solving exercises. (complete, last update: 17.01.2022)

The solutions are required to be sent encrypted and signed with GPG/PGP, you can download my public key from here. (It is enough to attach the encrypted and signed pdf document to a plain mail.) If you are using Linux, you can easily install GnuPG. For Windows you can user GPG4win, for MAC-OS you can use PGP Suite.

Tutorials and documentation for GPG.

In case of request, online oral exam is also possible.