Outline

Soon after the development of written communication came the need for secret writing, i.e., cryptography. With the advent of electronic communication came the need for network security. This course exams the many ways in which people have tried to hide information and secure communication in the past and how security is achieved in today's networks. The emphasis will be on the technical means of achieving secrecy. Some topics to be considered:

• Classical symmetric key ciphers (Ceasar substitution to the Enigma machine)
• Modern symmetric key ciphers (DES, AES and variants)
• Information theory and applications
• Public-key cryptography (e.g., RSA)
• Cryptographic protocols (e.g., key exchange, digital signatures)
• Authentication and hashing

Related topics such as steganography, privacy, and quantum cryptography will be discussed depending on the interests of the participants.

Materials

The required text for the course is