Course Length:

40 hours over 10 weeks (2 two-hour meetings per week)

Course Description:

Vigenere cipher. Kasiski and Friedman tests. Modern stream ciphers, b/p keystream generator, linear shift register keystream generator. Factoring: Fermat factorization, continued fraction factoring, elliptic curve factoring. Number fields, number field sieve. Discrete log problem in finite fields. Index calculus algorithm. Cryptanalysis of DES: linear cryptanalysis, differential cryptanalysis. Other attacks on DES (including meet-in-the-middle). Prerequisite: MATH 178 (Cryptography).

Course Learning Objective:

Understanding of basic notions of cryptanalysis and some of the underlying mathematical ideas and techniques. Awareness of various factorization techniques. Awareness of various attacks on DES, including linear cryptanalysis, differential analysis, and meet-in-the-middle attacks.

Major Topics:

Cryptographic key strength. Implications of cryptanalysis for privacy and for protection of files and data.

Method of Instruction:

Lecture, assignments

Evaluation Methods:

Tests, assignments