CS 355: Topics in Cryptography

Syllabus

(Fall 1998)

The course is a seminar on topics in cryptography. Course topics this year include pseudorandomness, security notions for both encryption and signatures, random oracle analysis, and a bit of distributed computations. The course is intended for graduate students interested in cryptography research.

Topic by lecture - tentative

Introduction. Crash course in probability, pair wise independence, large deviation bounds.

Part I: Pseudorandomness

A bit of complexity theory. Definition of one-way functions. Amplification of one-wayness.
Motivation and definition of PRNGs. Next bit test. Proof of universality.
Hard core bits. Blum-Micali generator. Example: discrete log.
Goldreich-Levin theorem.
Left-over-hash Lemma. (HILL)
Definition of PRFs. Applications.
The GGM Construction. The NR construction based on DDH.
Motivation and Definition of PRPs. The Luby-Rackoff construction a la Naor-Reignold.
Efficient constructions of PRNG's based on ideal ciphers.

Part II: Security notions

Security notions for encryption. Semantic security. Non-malleability. Attack models.
Constructions. Probabilistic encryption, Cramer-Shoup.
Security notions for signatures. Attack models.
Constructions. GMR. Dwork-Naor signatures.
Signatures based on UOWHF.

Part III: Random oracle analysis

How to encrypt with a trap door one way function.
How to sign with a trap door one way function.
Limits of random oracle analysis a la Canetti-Goldreich-Halevi.

Part IV: Basic distributed computation.

Introduction to secure function evaluation. Applications.
Oblivious transfer. Yao's two party protocol and GMW.
The BGW multi-party protocol.

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Last update: Sep. 21, 1998 by Dan Boneh.