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This course will explore the techniques of modern cryptography and its application to real-world problems, including common algorithms and protocols used to secure and validate electronic documents, messages, and e-commerce transactions. Secret and public key methods will be presented along with mechanisms for authentication and data integrity. The course will cover the pervasive TLS protocol; election, payment, and key management protocols; homomorphic encryption; and blockchains. This course has no formal prerequisites, and the focus will be on practical understanding of cryptography and security technologies, but students may find it useful to have some comfort with formal reasoning to understand not just "how" but also "why" things work. See here for the complete syllabus.
There is no assigned textbook for this course but you might find one or more of the following texts useful:
There is a discussion forum, where you can ask and answer questions related to the class. Please use the forum instead of email so other students can also learn from your questions. Of course, use email if the question is of a personal nature. The forum is located here.
Assignments will be posted every week, and will be due one week later, before class. No late submissions will be accepted, as the problems will be discussed during lecture. All assignment need to be submitted electronically to the Catalyst dropbox.
- Gradebook: gradebook
- Assignment 1 (PDF), Due: October 11th at 6:30 PM
- Assignment 1 SOLUTIONS (ppt)
- Assignment 2 (PDF), Due: October 18th at 6:30 PM
- Assignment 2 SOLUTIONS (ppt)
- Assignment 3 (WORD), Due: October 25th at 6:30 PM
- Assignment 3 SOLUTIONS (ppt)
- Assignment 4 (PDF), Due: November 1st at 6:30 PM
- Project Proposal (PDF), Due: November 8th at 6:30 PM
- Assignment 5 (PDF), Due: November 15th at 6:30 PM
- Assignment 6 (PDF), Due: November 22th at 6:30 PM
- Assignment 7 (PDF), Due: November 29th at 6:30 PM
- Scheduling Doc (PDF), Due: December 2nd at 5:00 PM
- Assignment 8 (PDF), Due: December 6th at 6:30 PM