This was a 1-semester course (Spring of 2011) for students who have had the rudiments of Number Theory, and would like to learn more, and to study applications of NT to Mathematical Cryptography, and to Coding in general [i.e, data-compression codes, isomorphism codes].
We'll take a look at Caesar ciphers and affine ciphers. A changing Caesar cipher is called a Vigenere cipher. (Shall we listen to (Blaise de) Vigenere?). One can generalize to Hill-type codes.
Our Teaching Page
has useful information for students in all of my classes.
It has my schedule,
LOR guidelines,
and Usually Useful Pamphlets.
One of them is the
Checklist (pdf)
which gives pointers on what I consider to be good mathematical
writing.
Further information is at our
class-archive URL
(I email this private URL directly to students).
In December 1932, the Polish Cipher Bureau first broke Germany's Enigma ciphers. Five weeks before the outbreak of World War II, on 25 July 1939, in Warsaw, the Polish Cipher Bureau gave Enigma-decryption techniques and equipment to French and British military intelligence. …[A]llied codebreakers were able to decrypt a vast number of messages that had been enciphered using the Enigma. The intelligence gleaned from this source was codenamed “Ultra” by the British.
[After World War II] Winston Churchill told Britain's King George VI:
It was thanks to Ultra that we won the war.Though the Enigma cipher had cryptographic weaknesses, in practice it was only in combination with other factors (procedural flaws, operator mistakes, occasional captured hardware and key tables, etc.) that those weaknesses allowed Allied cryptographers to be so successful.
Our Cryp class has a LISTSERV archive. I will email to each student how to post-to and read-from the Archive. (The archive is at a private URL, only for the use of the folks in our class.)
Our Cryp syllabus has important URLs and eddresses, and a partial topic-list It also mentions the Class photo Day, and letters-of-recommendation.
Various math czars who help out.
Time | Projector | Blackboard | Chalk | Humor | E-Probs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kaitlin | Julius & Jay | Kyle | Trevor | Kyle | Jay & ? |
Authors: | Jeffrey Hoffstein, Jill Pipher, J.H. Silverman | ISBN: | 978-0-387-77993-5 |
Year: | 2008 | Publisher: | Springer |
Marston: | QA268 .H64 2008 | Electronic: | Chap. 1 and Chap. 2, Diffie-Hellman, etc. (Free for UF students) |
The Web
Lightning Boltalg).
The EoS
Project-Z (pdf)
was due, slid
u
n
d
e
r
my office door (Little Hall 402, Northeast corner)
,
no later than noon, Friday, 22Apr2011.
The project must be carefully typed, but diagrams may be hand-drawn.
At all times have a paper copy you can hand-in; I do
NOT accept
electronic versions.
Print out a copy each day, so that you always have the latest version to
hand-in; this, in case your printer or computer fails.
(You are too old for My dog ate my homework.
)
Please follow the guidelines on the
Checklist
(pdf, 3pages) to earn full credit.