Math 98 - Winter 98

Cryptography

 

Textbook:   Neal Koblitz, A Course in Number Theory and Cryptography, Springer-Verlag

Instructor: T. R. Shemanske

 

 General Course Description

 This course will discuss various aspects of cryptography and cryptanalysis, beginning with a brief historical overview of the subject.

Crucial to the course will be a discussion of public key encryption, and the associated problems of primality testing and factoring. Students will explore various methods (based upon background) from the elementary to the exotic, and will present lectures as a part of the course.

The computer has completely changed the face of cryptography and cryptanalysis, so no course would be complete without computer implementation of some algorithms as a part of the course. Implementations can be in your language of choice (True Basic, C, Maple, etc.).  For newbies, I will happily run an xhour or two to give you the basics --- you will not need more; these are simple programs.

As this is a senior seminar---in the College's words, a ``culminating experience'', I think it is also very important that you learn to communicate mathematics effectively.  This means that I will expect you to give one or two short lectures on course material, and to keep a diary (handed in once a week), in which you give a short synopsis (as non technical as possible) on what we have discussed during the preceding week.

Finally, you will each be responsible for a large project in which you study some aspect of cryptology in depth, and make a written and oral presentation.
 

Major Components of the Course

 

Books on Reserve at Baker

  1. Bressoud, David, Factorization and Primality Testing
  2. Cohen, Henri, A course in Computational Algebraic Number Theory
  3. Beth, Frisch, Simmons, Public-Key Cryptography
  4. Ireland and Rosen,  A Classical Introduction to Number Theory
  5. Koblitz, Neal, A Course in Number Theory and Cryptography
  6. Rosen, Kenneth,  Elementary Number Theory and its Applications
  7. Solomaa, Arto, Public-Key Cryptography
  8. Schroeder, M.  Number Theory in Science and Communication
 
 

Math 98 downloads
 

 
 

Shemanske's home page