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Course Information for Spring 2008

Time: Mon. & Wed. 1:00-2:15
Place: Keyes 103

Instructor Information

Prof. Scott Russell
Office: Mudd 416A
Phone: (207) 859-5855
e-mail: srussell (at) colby (dot) edu
class mailing list: cs398 (join here)

Office Hours: Mon., Wed., Thurs. 2:30-3:30, Tues. 3:30-4:30, and by appointment

Course Description

The goal of the course is to acquaint you with the main cryptographic primitives used to enable information security. This includes but is not limited to pseudorandom generators, symmetric and asymmetric encryption, message authentication codes, and digital signatures. We will develop suitable definitions for each primitive by precisely describing the desired functionality and possible attacks against them. While some probability and number theory will needed, I don’t expect you to know it coming it. What I do expect from you is a certain level of mathematical/logical/critical thinking skills. You will need to be able to make convincing and coherent arguments in which steps following logically from one another.

** Final project **

Textbooks

There is no required text for the course. We will make use of a variety of on-line lecture notes and other content. A partial list of these appear below. Feel free to send me additional, relevant links that you unearth over the course of the semester.

Scott Russell © 2008