Welcome to Cryptography!
Announcements: There will be no class on Thursday, September 18. Please stay tuned for a video.
Office Hours: Office 736, Wexler Hall. Wednesdays, 1:30pm
Office Hours of TA: (Check out MC^2)
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" 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):
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 PK, MM
10/21: MN 10/23: 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.
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)
(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.)
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).