Instructor: Omkant Pandey (Office hours: MW 12:45 pm onwards, NCS 345)
TA: TBD
Time: MW, 02:00 pm - 03:20 pm
Location: FREY HALL 224
Contact: omkant [at] cs stonybrook edu
Important: Do NOT use any other email address to reach out
to me regarding the course, and label your email's subject with [CSE 546].
Otherwise your emails may go unnoticed.
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.
This would be an optional project chosen by the student in consultation with the instructor within first 3-4 weeks of the course. If you would like this option, you will first deliver a written project document within first three weeks of the course; send these ideas early for quick feedback. We will have one follow up meeting after which either I will approve or decline this option. The meeting may also be used to further refine the scope of the project. We will then have a up to two midterm meetings during the semester (to provide feedback, review code, discuss deliverables etc.), and a final meeting to evaluate the project once it is completed. These meetings are in addition to office hours which can always be used to get more feedback.
The project can either be applied (for example, pick an open-source project, find bugs or attacks, improve a feature, optimize for efficiency in certain situations, demonstrate in-congruencies between implementations and papers, be an end user and build something new on top of it, etc.) or theoretical where you can do original research with the end goal of publishing a research paper including systematization-of-knowledge (SoK) papers (examples include: develop a proof of security for something open-source, improve an existing paper, etc.), or a mix of both.
If you choose this option, we will meet once or twice to finalize the scope of the project, a midterm meeting to check on progress (provide feedback, review code, etc.), and a final meeting to evaluate once you have submitted your projects.
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 3 students can be on one project; the 60% credit will be equally *split* between group members (30% each for 2 students, 20% each for 3 students). 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 | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jan 28 | Introduction | Ch. 1 |
| 2 | Feb 02, Feb 04 | Shannon, Perfect Secrecy; Indistinguishable Security | Ch. 2, §3.1-3.2 |
| 3 | Feb 09, Feb 11 | Encryption via PRGs; CPA-Security, CCA | §3.3-3.5 |
| 4 | Feb 16, Feb 18 | Encryption Modes, Message Authentication, Issue HW1 02/16 | §3.6, Ch. 4 |
| 5 | Feb 23, Feb 25 | Hash Functions, One-way Functions, HW1 due 02/25 | Ch. 5, §7.1 |
| 6 | Mar 02, Mar 04 | One-Way Functions, Hard Core Predicates, SOL-1 03/04 | §7.1,§7.2 |
| 7 | Mar 09, Mar 11 | PRGs, PRFs, PRPs, Issue HW2 03/13. | §7.2-7.6 |
| 8 | Mar 16 - Mar 22 | Spring Recess | - |
| 9 | Mar 23, Mar 25 | Number Theory; Hardness Assumptions; HW2 due 03/25 | §8.1-8.4 |
| 10 | Mar 30, Apr 01 | Key Management, Public-Key Revolution; SOL-2 04/01. | Ch. 10 |
| 11 | Apr 06, Apr 08 | Public-Key Encryption, Issue HW3 04/08 | §11.1-11.5 |
| 12 | Apr 13, Apr 15 | Digital Signatures | §12.1-12.7 |
| 13 | Apr 20, Apr 22 | Trapdoors, Secret Sharing, HW3 due 04/20, SOL-3 04/22 | §13.1-13.3 |
| 14 | Apr 27, Apr 29 | Interactive Proofs, Zero Knowledge | - |
| 15 | May 04, May 06 | Presentations | - |
| - | May 15 | Final, 2:15 pm - 5:00 pm, 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.
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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.