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Cryptography is an essential part of computer security but in many contexts
it is treated as a black box with ill-specified or highly idealized properties.
For many cryptographic primitives the notions of security have indeed been
formalized satisfactorily using notions from computational complexity and
randomized algorithms. Furthermore, using reductions, researchers have shown
how to develop cryptosystems whose security is precisely based on the
intractibility of computing certain functions.
This course will examine the following questions:
- What does it mean for cryptographic protocols to be secure?
- How can we base secure cryptographic protocols on intractible problems?
- What are some existing cryptographic protocols and how do they
fit in this framework?
In particular we will study:
- symmetric (private-key) and asymmetric (public-key) encryption
- message authentication and signature schemes
- cryptographic hash functions
- pseudorandom number and pseudorandom function generation
other topics as time permits (e.g. zero-knowledge proofs)
Work in the class will consist of note-taking (possibly), a small number of
written assignments, and a final project that will involve reading and giving
a presentation of a cryptography paper.
Prerequisite: Some familiarity with formal models of computation will be
helpful
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Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
Box 352350
Seattle, WA 98195-2350
(206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX
[comments to Paul Beame]
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