CS547 Cryptography and Data Security


Instructor: Prof. Claude Crépeau

Office : Room 109, McConnell Eng. Building
3480 University Street
phone: (514) 398-4716
email: crepeau@cs.mcgill.ca

T.A.: Geneviève Arboit

Office : Room 104, McConnell Eng. Building
3480 University Street
phone: (514) 398-7071 x7064
email: garboit@cs.mcgill.ca

Office Hours:
Claude : Tuesday + Thursday 13h00 - 15h00, McConnell 109.
Geneviève : Wednesday + Friday 9h30-11h00, McConnell 104.


Description: (3 credits, 3 hours). This course presents an in-depth study of modern cryptography and data security. We investigate four important subjects of cryptography: data encryption, message authentication, user identification and key distribution. The basic information theoretic and computational security of classical and modern cryptographic systems are analysed. The course is self-contained and all necessary mathematical background will be explicitely covered.


Objectives: Discover how Alice may send a secret message to Bob that nobody else can understand, how he may be certain that this message came from Alice, how she can prove him who she is with revealing anyhting about the proof (!) , and how they can exchange a secret key using dim pulses of laser light, etc.


Mandatory textbook: Cryptography - Theory and Practice by Doug Stinson. CRC Press, Inc. ISBN 0-8493-8521-0


Evaluation: There will be 5 homework assigments worth 50% of your final grade and a final exam worth 50%. The homeworks will have some theoretical components worth 30% and applications using Maple 7 worth 20%.


Course outline: