MSc Advanced Computer Science / Course details

Cryptography is a vital component of modern electronic security technologies.

The course aims to give students a good appreciation of cryptographic techniques, as they have arisen historically, and as they are used today.

• ​​​​​​Comment on the broad principles underlying cryptography and its applications.
• Describe some of the classical cryptographic techniques and their weaknesses.
• Describe the principles of the most widely used private key cryptographic schemes.
• Describe the principles of the most widely used public key key cryptographic schemes.

• Early cryptography: permutations and substitutions, Vignere, Vernam, one time pads, etc.
• Rotor machines: Enigma and its relatives.
• Case study: Marian Rejewski and the breaking of the German Enigma.
• Modern cryptography, secret key: block cyphers, DES, AES, etc.
• Modern cryptography, public key: Diffie-Hellman, RSA, elliptic curves.
• Message authentication, hash functions, digital signatures.
• Quantum cryptography: quantum key distribution in practice.

Feedback is provided face to face in the lab, and online for uploaded assessed materials.