Lectures: Tu and Th, 5:00--6:20PM in WLH 2208
Discussion: W, 2:00--2:50PM in PETER 103 EXCEPT no Discussion on
| Instructor | Mihir Bellare | mihir[at]cs[dot]ucsd[dot]edu |
| TA | Tom Ristenpart | tristenp[at]cs[dot]ucsd[dot]edu |
Instructor office: EBU3B Room 4244.
Instructor office hour: Tu 4:00-5:00PM.
TA office hour: M 11-12 in EBU3B 260A, EXCEPT no office hours on
Course information: It is very important for each student to carefully read the course information document. It has information about the course policies, rules, and grading. Students are responsible for knowing and abiding by the polices and rules stated here.
Course content: This course is an introduction to modern cryptography. Cryptography, broadly speaking, is about communicating in the presence of an adversary, with goals like preservation of privacy and integrity of communicated data. We will cover symmetric (aka.~private key) and asymmetric (aka.~public key) cryptography, including block ciphers, modes of operation, hash functions, digital siganatures, asymmetric encryption, RSA, the discretel ogarithm problem, public-key infrastructure, key distribution, and various applications. The course will emphasize rigorous mathematical formulations of security goals in the style of ``provable security,'' and aim to train students in spotting weaknesses in designs.
This is not a computer-security course. We will NOT cover topics like viruses, worms, operating systems security, or security holes in windows or linux. (The techniques we develop have some applications in such areas, but these areas are not touched upon directly.)
This is generally regarded by UCSD undergraduates as a challenging course. It is theoretical and mathematical in nature, and calls for ability to understand abstract concepts. The successful student has typically done well in CSE 21, 101 and 105.