The following gives a day-by-day breakdown of topics covered, readings assigned, and assignment handouts/due dates. Each topic includes required readings that students should read before the topic is discussed in class – always look ahead a few days to see what readings you should be doing. While this seems very fast-paced, the textbook’s chapters are designed to be covered in one day each, and are typically just 10–15 pages long.
The schedule in this class is flexible, and past dates will be updated to reflect what was actually covered. Future dates are always tentative and subject to change.
Tues Aug 15: Syllabus/class overview, start math background
Thur Aug 17: Review of concepts and notation [Chapter 0]
Tues Aug 22: One-Time Pad [Chapter 1]
Thur Aug 24: The Basics of Provable Security - part 1 [Sections 2.1-2.2]
Assignment 1 due Thursday, August 31
Tues Aug 29: The Basics of Provable Security - part 2 [Sections 2.3-2.5]
Thur Aug 31: Secret Sharing - part 1 [Sections 3.1-3.3]
Tues Sept 5: Secret Sharing - part 2 [Sections 3.4-3.5]
Thur Sept 7: Basing Cryptography on Intractable Computations - part 1 [Section 4.1]
Alternative Reading: Estimation with Powers of Two, etc. (material from CSC 481/681)
Assignment 2 due Tuesday, September 12
Tues Sept 12: Section 4.2 and Review for Exam 1
Thur Sept 14: Exam 1 over Chapters 0–4 (up to and including Section 4.2)
Tues Sept 19: Indistinguishability and the Birthday Problem [Sections 4.3–4.4]
Thur Sept 21: Pseudorandom Generators [Sections 5.1-5.4]
Tues Sept 26: Pseudorandom Functions and Block Ciphers - part 1 [Chapter 6]
Thur Sept 28: Pseudorandom Functions and Block Ciphers - part 2
Assignment 3 due Tuesday, October 3
Tues Oct 3: Security Against Chosen Plaintext Attacks [Chapter 7]
Thur Oct 5: Block Cipher Modes of Operation [Chapter 8]
Tues Oct 10: FALL BREAK
Thur Oct 12: Chosen Ciphertext Attacks - part 1 [Chapter 9]
Assignment 4 due Tuesday, October 17
Graduate Reading Report 1 due Tuesday, October 17
Tues Oct 17: Finish Chosen Ciphertext Attacks and Review for Exam 2
Thur Oct 19: Exam 2 over Sections 4.3–4.4 and Chapters 5–9
Graduate Project Topic Selection due Tuesday, October 24
Tues Oct 24: Message Authentication Codes - part 1 [Chapter 10]
Thur Oct 26: Message Authentication Codes - part 2
Tues Oct 31: Hash Functions [Chapter 11]
Thur Nov 2: Authenticated Encryption and AEAD [Chapter 12]
Assignment 5 due Tuesday, November 7
Tues Nov 7: RSA and Digital Signatures - part 1 [Chapter 13]
Thur Nov 9: RSA and Digital Signatures - part 2
Graduate Project Progress Report due Tuesday, November 14
Tues Nov 14: Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement [Chapter 14] and some of Chapter 15
Thur Nov 16: No class meeting
Assignment 6 due Tuesday, November 21
Tues Nov 21: Public Key Encryption [Chapter 15] and introduction to Zero-Knowledge Proofs [references below]
Thur Nov 23: THANKSGIVING
Tues Nov 28: Review
Graduate Project Final Report due Tuesday, December 5, 7:00 PM (final exam time)
Tuesday, Dec 5, 7:00-10:00 (PM)
The final exam is cumulative, but most of the emphasis will be on the chapters since Exam 2 (Chapters 10–15)