CS 7000 - Cryptography Seminar - Spring 2008
Course Information Sheet
Jan 14, 2008
You are responsible for everything on this handout. Please read it.
What's This Course About??
We are going to learn about Modern Cryptography. We may spend a little bit
of time on classical crypto, but not much. Our goal is to get to the
research front as quickly as possible while still covering the main
pieces of background you will need in order to absorb the material.
We will start with some basic probability theory. Then we will cover
block ciphers and other cryptographic objects in some detail. Then we
will look at modes of operation on these primitives and their security
models and proofs of correctness. We may spend a large amount of time
on Message Authentication Codes and how to construct them in an efficient
manner. We may also look at attacks on various cryptosystems and try and
learn what makes a system secure or insecure.
We will NOT be focussing on higher level protocols like Kerberos, SSL,
SSH, Electronic Voting, Electronic Cash, or other such things in any
kind of detail. Nor will we be discussing the specifics of network
protocols and other non-cryptographic security issues.
Meetings
TR 11:00am-12:15pm (Room MUEN E114, Call Number 12739)
Instructor
Grading
There will be occasional homework assignments, which will account for 100%
of your grade. There will be no quizzes or exams.
Prerequisites
This is a hard course to outline the prerequisites for. The best background
you could have is the ability to think carefully and precisely in a
mathematical context. Have some "mathematical maturity" would be greatly
helpful. Knowing how to write a proof and how to understand a proof is
essential.
Beyond this, having some knowledge about probability theory is useful, as
is information theory, modern algebra, complexity theory, algorithms,
linear algebra, and other items, but I will try and assume a minimum of
this kind of material.
Textbook
No Textbook. We will use several on-line resources as we progress through
the class. You may choose to print these out if you work better that way.
Course Web page
We will maintain useful information on the course
web page:
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~jrblack/class/csci7000/s08
Visit the above page regularly to see what's new.
If you miss a handout, get it from here.
Make John Happy
There are several ways to make me happy:
- Come to my office only during office hours or with an appointment.
(I have a one-track mind and don't handle interruptions well; if
people are constantly dropping by without an appointment, I'll never
get anything done.)
- Don't try to ply me for more points.
(If there is an obvious grading error,
I'm happy to correct it immediately, but if you constantly argue
for more partial credit in some gray area, I will exhibit very
little patience.)
- Come to class on time. (I don't mind people coming in
late once in a while, but please don't make a habit of it: it's
disrespectful.)