Number Theory and Cryptography --- Fall 2002

Markus Schmidmeier
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, Florida 33431-0991

Here is some information about my course on

Number Theory and Cryptography.

To be precise, there will be two sections of this course, MAT 4930 (section number 5015), and MAS 6217 (section number 5016). Both sections meet at the same time (Tuesday and Thursday, 5:00 - 6:20 p.m) and at the same place (FLH 315).

Textbook and Topics

We are going to use the textbook "Introduction to Cryptography with Coding Theory" by W. Trappe and L. C. Washington (Prentice Hall, 2002).
There are three main topics in this course:

Basic Number Theory. Euclidean Algorithm, Chinese Remainder Theorem, Theorems by Fermat and Euler, Computations mod n , Finite Fields (Chapter 3), Primality Testing, Factoring Numbers (Sections 6.3, 6.4), Discrete Logarithms (Sections 7.1, 7.2).

Cryptographic Algorithms. Some Classical Cryptosystems (Chapter 1), The RSA Algorithm (Chapter 6), and The El Gamal System (Chapter 7).

Applications. Digital Signatures (Chapter 8), Digital Cash (Section 9.2), Secret Sharing Schemes (Chapter 10), a Game: Poker over the Telephone (Chapter 11), Zero Knowledge Identification Schemes (Chapter 12), and perhaps something about Electronic Voting.

Credit

Homework: Every week, homework problems will be assigned; some problems will be graded. All homework problems count for 1/6 of your grade. Some of the problems will require the use of a computer algebra system such as Maple or MuPAD. , and for some problems you can get Extra Credit, so, homework scores of 100% or above are possible ! Here you can find past and current homework problems.
Quizzes: There'll be a quiz every second Thursday; the five best quizzes count for 1/6 of the grade. The first quiz is on 8/29/02 !
Midterm Exams: Two midterm exams will be announced in class. Both together count for 1/3 of the grade. The first midterm will take place on October 3, 2002 in our classroom; the second midterm on November 7, 2002.
Final Exam: The final exam on Tuesday, December 10, 4:30- 7 p.m., is comprehensive. It will count for 1/3 of your grade.

For your Calendar
Last day to drop without getting a "W": Friday, September 20;
Last day to drop without getting an "F": Friday, October 18.

Contact Me

Office hours: MWF 4 - 5 p.m., in S&E 278, and after class (during term time).
E-mail: mschmidm@fau.edu..

Last modified: , by Markus Schmidmeier