CFR5100

Modern cryptology

Y Zheng

6 points - 4 hours per week - First or second semester - Peninsula

Objectives At the completion of this subject the students should have a thorough understanding of the state of the art in the theory of modern cryptology, and have mastered the key security technologies for safeguarding information systems. In particular, the students should be able to apply the latest cryptological technologies in designing and implementing a real world secure computing and communications system.

Synopsis This subject provides students with a deep understanding of the state of the art in the theory and applications of modern cryptology, which is the science of creating and breaking codes for information confidentiality and/or integrity and is embodied in the core of all modern information security technologies. Students will concentrate on the latest developments and their importance in implementing secure commercial, industrial and governmental computing and communications systems. Topics will be selected from mathematical and computational foundations of cryptology, cryptography (how to create codes), cryptanalysis (how to break codes), authentication, authorisation and identification, digital signatures, key agreement, interactive proof systems and zero-knowledge protocols, secure multi-party computation, information dispersal and sharing, cryptographic randomness and its creation and utilisation, and applications of cryptology in industrial, commercial, governmental and academic computing and communications systems.

Assessment Assignments: 25% - Seminars: 25% - Written report (4000 words): 50%

Prescribed texts

Stinson D Cryptography theory and practice CRC, 1995

Recommended texts

Schneier B Applied cryptography: Protocols, algorithms, and source code in C 2nd edn, Wiley, 1995
Simmons G (ed.) Contemporary cryptology, the science of information integrity IEEE Press, 1992

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