Introduction to Applied Cryptography

Course Aim

To introduce students to everyday cryptographic mechanisms that are used to secure our digital world.

Course Description

An introductory course in modern, applied cryptography that explores the uses and limitations of cryptography. Students will learn about the main cryptographic algorithms and mechanisms for providing confidentiality, integrity and authentication, and their corresponding formal notions of security. During this study, students will learn how these mechanisms may be used in real-world applications such as establishing secure communication channels (e.g. the TLS protocol), but also encounter several examples of how security may fail when the same mechanisms are not properly employed. The course will also consider some of the more recent and novel applications of cryptography, such as privacy preserving mechanisms and secure computation, as well as cryptographic security in the emerging quantum world.

Course Contents

Topics covered:
1. Introduction to Cryptography
2. One-Time Pad and Stream Ciphers
3. Block Ciphers and modes of operation
4. Hash Functions and applications
5. Message Authentication Codes
6. Authenticated Encryption
7. Public-Key Cryptography: encryption
8. Public-Key Cryptography: digital signatures
9. Post-Quantum Cryptography
10. Key Establishment Mechanisms and Key Management
11. Cryptographic protocols and applications

Assessment

Homework: 60%; Seminar: 40%

Prerequisites or Prior Knowledge

No prerequisite within the OIST graduate syllabus. The expectation is that students have a scientific background, with knowledge equivalent to first-year undergraduate mathematics, or more generally, the equivalent to discrete mathematics taught in many science undergraduate degrees.

Textbooks

A Graduate Course in Applied Cryptography (Dan Boneh and Victor Shoup)
Available online at: https://toc.cryptobook.us/
(current version 0.6 -- https://toc.cryptobook.us/book.pdf)

Notes

Five-week intensive course

Research Specialties