447 Cryptography I

Welcome to Cryptography!

Contact information.

Office Hours: Office 736, Wexler Hall. Wednesdays at 2:30pm.

Office Hours of TA: (Check out MC^2)

Textbooks: We will use Hoffstein/Pipher/Silverman's "An Introduction to Mathematical Cryptography" extensively. 

Exams: There will be three midterms, on Oct 5 (in class), on Oct 26 (in class), and on Nov 16 (in class) and a final (on the appropriate final exam date).

Grade breakdown: Five components, each consisting of 20 points. Midterms: 3x20 points, Final 20 points, homeworks and presentation 10 points+10 points=20 points. 

Honors presentations: If you would like to do an honors project or replace an exam with a presentation, you can do a 25-minute presentation towards the end of the semester.

Where's the Canvas? There is no canvas for this course.

Final Presentations: 

• 11/28: (KC), (AD+AD+EO+LW)

• 11/30: (MG+SH), (LJ)

Homeworks:

• HW 1 (due 9/14)

• HW 2 (due 9/21 9/26)

• HW 3 (due 10/3 10/5)

• HW 4 (due 10/19)

• HW 5 (due 10/31)

• HW 6 (due 11/14)

• HW 7 (optional, due 12/5) 

Homework Presentations: https://signup.com/go/npvTKWM 

The presentations should be about 5 min/person.

As you may notice, it is in groups of up to four, and I strongly encourage group presentations.

For the content of the presentations, you could do the following:

-- present a problem from the book, e.g. a homework problem

-- present an example of cryptography in action using a computer program of your choice. Here is an example: https://crypto.katestange.net/miller-rabin-tools/ for the Miller--Rabin test. We will see this in action soon in class.

-- present a small topic in quantum crypto

This course is part of the cryptology certificate. Here is some more info about it.

Syllabus: We will follow the suggested syllabus on p. xvi of the textbook (see below), and add topics in quantum cryptography as desired by student demand.