| Instructor: | Omkant Pandey (Office hours: MW 12:45 pm onwards, NCS 345) |
| TA: | TBD |
| Time: | MW, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm |
| Location: | NCS 120 |
| Contact: | omkant [at] cs stonybrook edu |
All announcements will be made through Brightspace.
Introduction to foundational topics in modern cryptography including symmetric encryption, pseudorandomness, hash functions, message integrity, digital signatures, and public-key encryption. The course is theoretical in nature, with emphasis on provable security. No prior background in cryptography is assumed. Students should be comfortable working with definitions and proofs, and be familiar with general concepts in computer science such as Turing machines, algorithms and reductions.
100% of your total grade can be made up by completing a combination of any of the following assignments and activities:
Here are some ways one can exercise these options to one's advantage:
This would be an optional project chosen by the student in consultation with the instructor within first 3-4 weeks of the course. The project will be a research paper in cryptography. You will have to understand the paper, and deliver a report summarizing the paper. The instructor must be convinced that you understand the paper, and an oral presentation by the student would be necessary where the student explains the report, answers questions about it and the paper. The overall performance in the project will depend on student's understanding of the paper (as determined by the instructor based on the oral presentation) and the quality of the report. Applied projects involving implementations are also possible, and will be subjected to the same expectations. If you wish to exercise this option (and we highly recommend that you do), please discuss your project within the first 4 weeks of the course, and submit a written commitment outlining in detail what your project would be. The instructor may ask for more details at his discretion. We will meet 2-3 times during the semester to ensure everyone is on track, and a final meeting would be conducted to evaluate the performance. The oral presentation about the project is different from the class-presentation (which counts for 10% of your grade). The class presentation can be based on your project (and we recommend this so everyone gets to learn about what you did) but the class presentation is not a replacement for the oral evaluation of the project conducted by the instructor.
Note: if you do not do well in the project, you can still take the final and do well in the course! So it is beneficial to take advantage of the project.
Policy for Group Projects: Up to 2 students can be on one project; the 45% credit will be equally *split* between group members (22.5% each). Groups will have to be approved on a case by case basis depending on the complexity of the project.
The prescribed textbook for this course is Katz and Lindell's Introduction to Modern Cryptography (some copies available in the library). See course webpage for previous offerings of this course for several free and excellent resources on the subject.
| Week | Date | Topic & Deadlines | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug 24, Aug 26 | Introduction; Shannon, Perfect Secrecy | Ch. 1, Ch. 2 |
| 2 | Aug 31, Sep 02 | Indistinguishable Security; Encryption via PRGs | §3.1-3.3 |
| 3 | Sep 07, Sep 09 | Labor Day (09/07); CPA-Security, CCA | §3.3-3.5 |
| 4 | Sep 14, Sep 16 | Encryption Modes, Message Authentication, Issue HW1 09/14 | §3.6, Ch. 4 |
| 5 | Sep 21, Sep 23 | Hash Functions, One-way Functions, HW1 due 09/23 | Ch. 5, §7.1 |
| 6 | Sep 28, Sep 30 | One-Way Functions, Hard Core Predicates, SOL-1 09/30 | §7.1, §7.2 |
| 7 | Oct 05, Oct 07 | PRGs, PRFs, PRPs, Issue HW2 10/09 | §7.2-7.6 |
| - | Oct 12 - Oct 13 | Fall Break (No Classes) | - |
| 8 | Oct 14, Oct 19 | Number Theory; Hardness Assumptions; HW2 due 10/21 | §8.1-8.4 |
| 9 | Oct 21, Oct 26 | Key Management, Public-Key Revolution; SOL-2 10/26 | Ch. 10 |
| 10 | Oct 28, Nov 02 | Public-Key Encryption, Issue HW3 11/02 | §11.1-11.5 |
| 11 | Nov 04, Nov 09 | Digital Signatures | §12.1-12.7 |
| 12 | Nov 11, Nov 16 | Trapdoors, Secret Sharing, HW3 due 11/16, SOL-3 11/18 | §13.1-13.3 |
| 13 | Nov 18, Nov 23 | Interactive Proofs, Zero Knowledge | - |
| - | Nov 25 - Nov 29 | Thanksgiving Break (No Classes) | - |
| 14 | Nov 30, Dec 02 | Presentations | - |
| 15 | Dec 07 | Presentations | - |
| - | Dec 09 - Dec 17 | Final Exam (venue TBD) | - |
If you have a physical, psychological, medical, or learning disability that may impact your course work, please contact the Student Accessibility Support Center, Stony Brook Union Suite 107, (631) 632-6748, or at sasc@stonybrook.edu. They will determine with you what accommodations are necessary and appropriate. All information and documentation is confidential.
Each student must pursue his or her academic goals honestly and be personally accountable for all submitted work. Representing another person's work as your own is always wrong. Faculty is required to report any suspected instances of academic dishonesty to the Academic Judiciary. Faculty in the Health Sciences Center (School of Health Technology & Management, Nursing, Social Welfare, Dental Medicine) and School of Medicine are required to follow their school-specific procedures. For more comprehensive information on academic integrity, including categories of academic dishonesty please refer to the academic judiciary website at http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/academic_integrity/index.html.
Stony Brook University expects students to respect the rights, privileges, and property of other people. Faculty are required to report to the Office of University Community Standards any disruptive behavior that interrupts their ability to teach, compromises the safety of the learning environment, or inhibits students' ability to learn. Faculty in the HSC Schools and the School of Medicine are required to follow their school-specific procedures. Further information about most academic matters can be found in the Undergraduate Bulletin, the Undergraduate Class Schedule, and the Faculty-Employee Handbook.