Math 690 Spring 2004, MW 11-1 Room DRL 4E9

Mathematical Foundations of Computer Security

Professor Andre Scedrov


Office: Room 4E6 in David Rittenhouse Laboratory
Telephone: eight five nine eight three ( Math. Dept. Office: eight eight one seven eight )
Fax: three four zero six three
E-mail: lastname at math
Office Hours: By appointment


About This Course

"What is to distinguish a digital dollar when it is as easily reproducible as the spoken word? How do we converse privately when every syllable is bounced off a satellite and smeared over an entire continent? How should a bank know that it really is Bill Gates requesting from his laptop in Fiji a transfer of $100,000,.....,000 to another bank? Fortunately, the mathematics of cryptography can help. Cryptography provides techniques for keeping information secret, for determining that information has not been tampered with, and for determing who authored pieces of information." (From the Foreword by R. Rivest to the "Handbook of Applied Cryptography" by Menezes, van Oorschot, and Vanstone.)

This course for graduate students and advanced undergraduates will discuss security protocol design and analysis and the related areas of cryptography. The course will complement but not presuppose CIS 677 and Math 524 from Fall 2003 and is intended to be more advanced than CIS 551 in Spring 2004. We will cover the necessary background for students who have not taken CIS 677 or Math 524.


Textbooks


Further References


Take-Home Midterm Due in Class on Wednesday, March 24

This is a complete list of midterm assignments due March 24, 2004.

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