Welcome to Cryptography!
Announcements: Here is the review sheet for the upcoming midterm.
Syllabus: We will follow (while skipping a lot of) Shemanske's book at the beginning, and then switch over mainly to HPS
Reading:
Shemanske, p. 1-16, 56-66 (week of Aug 28) and 27-44, 147-159 (week of Sep 4), 159-185(week of Sep 11)
Hoffstein/Pipher/Silverman, chapter 1 (mostly for review and alternative explanations of Shemanske, though please red subchapter 1.5 carefully) and chapters 2.1-2.5 -- week of Sep 18
HPS, chapters 6.1-6.4 (again, 6.1 should be mostly review from Shemanske) -- week of Sep 23
HPS, chapters 2.6-2.8
(Btw, Shemanske's book is from the Student Mathematical Library series of the AMS -- these books are great light reading, and there are many others. They are usually `too easy' to be actual textbooks for courses, but I hope you find the time to find some nice reads.)
Office Hours: Office 736, Wexler Hall. Wednesdays, 1:30pm
TA: Gage Beveridge
Textbooks: We will use Shemanske's book "Modern Cryptography and Elliptic Curves: A Beginner's Guide" and Hoffstein/Pipher/Silverman's "An Introduction to Mathematical Cryptography" (second edition, 2014) extensively.
Exams: There will be three midterms, on Sep 16 (in class), on Oct 16 (in class), and on Nov 13 (in class) and a final (on the appropriate final exam date).
Homeworks (please turn in paper copies at the beginning of class):
(due Sep 25) (please note that there are two editions of the textbook. Here are the chapter 6 homeworks.)
Grade breakdown: Five components, each consisting of 20 points. Midterms: 3x20 points, Final 20 points, homeworks and presentation 10 points+10 points=20 points.
Presentations: There will be student presentations every other week:
Please coordinate with one another on how to divide up the material. Not all of it has to be presented, but try to convey what is interesting about it.
You may present individually or in groups. For example, if six people sign up for a given slot, you might choose to have one individual presentation, one by a pair, and one by a group of three. But please do coordinate with everyone in your slot.
A presentation with n participants should run between 10–15 minutes per person (i.e., n × 10 to n × 15 minutes in total).
9/9: Both exercises on p. 16 in Shmanske. LG, EM -
9/11: RD, RR The exercise on p. 38 in Shemanske
9/23: The exercises on p.40 and the first two exercises on p.44 JQ, APM
9/25: The exercise on p.42 AF, RS
10/7: The last exercise on p.44 DH, IN
10/9: Choose any number of exercises on p.62, 66, 71 in Shemanske PK, MM
10/21: Exercises (1) and (3) on p. 185 in Shemanske MN, AH
10/23: Exercises (2) on p. 185 in Shemanske AC, EK
11/4: JoS, FM
11/6: AL, SRT
11/18: RT, BC
11/20: ZS, YM
12/2: AG, JaS
12/4: --
Where's the Canvas? There is no canvas for this course.
This course is part of the cryptology certificate. This can be earned alongside a bachelor's degree in any field, although it is particularly compatible with mathematics or computer science. Here is some more info about it. If interested, discuss with a SoMSS advisor (schedule an appointment here).