UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

ECE 597/697XX: Introduction to Cryptography

Description: A course on the theory and practice of cryptography. The main focus is on
how crypto algorithms and protocols work, and how they can be applied in the real world.

• The topics to be covered include:

  • 1. Introduction.
  • 2. Stream ciphers and pseudo-random number generators.
  • 3. Symmetric ciphers: Data Encryption Standard (DES) and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
  • 4. Public-key cryptography - introduction.
  • 5. Asymmetric algorithms: RSA, ElGamal and Elliptic curves.
  • 6. Digital signatures and Message Authentication codes.
  • 7. Hash functions, security services and key distribution.
  • 8. Side-channel attacks on cryptographic systems.
    
    
• Homework Assignments:
  
• OWL quizzes
  Select "University of Massachusetts at Amherst", "Electrical and Computer Engineering."
  
  • Quiz 1 (Ch. 1)
    
  • Quiz 2 (Ch. 2,3)
    
  • Quiz 3 (Ch. 4)
    
  • Quiz 4 (Ch. 5)
    In addition, solve the following problems and write/print on paper:
    Chapter 5 - 5.8, 5.16, and using the online AES encryption/decryption tool at http://cryptojs.altervista.org/secretkey/aes_cryptojs.html , answer the questions below. The base 64 encoding table can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64. A Base 64 to HEX (and vice versa) converter can be found at http://tomeko.net/online_tools/base64.php?lang=en.
    • Encrypt your name and your home address using all the five modes ECB, CBC, OFB, CFB and CTR, and the padding options NoPadding, ZeroPadding and PKCS7. Indicate the differences between the resulting ciphertexts and explain the differences between the padding schemes. Notice that you can set the IV and Salt to any value including 0.
    • Explain the purpose of the Salt. What is the use of the Salt, the IV and the Padding?
  • Quiz 5 (Ch. 6)
    
  • Quiz 6 (Ch. 7)
    
  • Quiz 7 (Ch. 8)
    
  • Quiz 8 (Ch. 9)
    
  • Quiz 9 (Ch. 10)
    
  • Quiz 10 (Ch, 11,12)
    Chapter 11 - 11.7; Chapter 12 - 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 (1).
  • Quiz 11 (Ch. 13)
    Chapter 13 - 13.1, 13.10, 13.13.