UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

ECE 597/697XX: ST - Introduction to Cryptography
Spring 2013

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 Advance 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.
    
    
• Special project details (15% of final grade, reducing the weight of either the midterm or the final exam):
  
  • Submit the 7 questions and answers (in two separate plain text files) by Tuesday April 23.
  • Review (and solve) 7 questions generated by other students, by Tuesday April 30.
  • If you were assigned one of the chapters 11, 12 or 13 then you should prepare only 6 questions.

• Lecture venue: TuTh 4:00-5:15, Marcus 106
  
• Mid-term Exam: March 13, 2013, 4-6pm, 2 hours.
  Material covered: Chapters 1-6.
  You may use during the exam your own lecture notes, graded homeworks and the course lecture notes only. No other materials including books, internet-connected devices or any software tools are allowed.
• Final Exam: Friday May 3, 2013, 4-6pm, Marston 220.
  You may use during the exam your own lecture notes, graded homeworks and the course lecture notes only. No other materials including books, internet-connected devices or any software tools are allowed.
• Homework Assignments (from Understanding Cryptography)
  • HW1, due Jan. 31, 2013: Chapter 1 - 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.10, 1.11, 1.14.
  • HW2, due Feb. 12, 2013: Chapter 2 - 2.4, 2.8, 2.10; Chapter 3 - 3.1, 3.4, 3.5.
  • HW3, due Feb. 26, 2013: Chapter 4 - 4.6, 4.9 (set the plaintext to OxEE...E), 4.10, 4.11, 4.12.
  • HW4, due Mar. 5, 2013: Chapter 5 - 5.8, 5.9, 5.10, 5.16, and using the online AES encryption/decryption tool at http://cryptojs.altervista.org/secretkey/aes_cryptojs.html , answer the following questions:
    • 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 difference between the Salt and the Padding?
  • HW5, due Mar. 7, 2013: Chapter 6 - 6.2, 6.5, 6.7, 6.10, 6.12.
  • HW6, due Mar. 26, 2013: Chapter 7 - 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.7, 7.10.
  • HW7, due Mar. 28, 2013: Chapter 8 - 8.1, 8.4 (1,2,3), 8.5, 8.11, 8.13, 8.14.
  • HW8, due Apr. 11, 2013: Chapter 9 - 9.2, 9.5, 9.7, 9.9, 9.10.
  • HW9, due Apr. 18, 2013: Chapter 10 - 10.4, 10.9, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, 10.16.
  • HW10, due Apr. 23, 2013: Chapter 11 - 11.2, 11.5, 11.7, 11.8; Chapter 12 - 12.2, 12.4, 12.5 (1).
  • HW11 (last), due Apr. 30, 2013: Chapter 13 - 13.1, 13.10, 13.11, 13.12, 13.13.
• Lecture notes (pdf format):
  • Part 1 (Jan. 24), Part 2 (new version: Jan. 26)
  • Part 3 (new version: Jan. 30), Part 4 (new version: Feb. 2)
  • Part 5 (new version: Feb. 12), Part 6 (new version: Feb. 14)
  • Part 7 (new version: Feb. 28), Part 8 (new version: Mar. 7)
  • Part 9 (new version: Mar. 24), Part 10 (new version: Apr. 4)
  • Part 11 (new version: Apr. 11), Part 12 (new version: Apr. 16)
  • Part 13 (new version: Apr. 23), Part 14 (Fault Injection Attacks - Apr. 22),
  • Sample final test questions (to be discussed on Tuesday April 30).
• Instructor: Prof. Israel Koren, KEB 309E, Tel. 545-2643, Email: koren 'at' ecs.umass.edu
• Prerequisites: Recommended: Courses in Discrete Mathematics and Finite Field Mathematics.
• Recommended books:
  • C. Paar and J. Pelzl, Understanding Cryptography, Springer, 2009. ISBN 978-3-642-04100-6
  • N. P. Smart, Cryptography, An Introduction, available at http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~nigel/Crypto_Book/
• Recommended reading:
  • A. J. Menezes et al., Handbook of Applied Cryptography, available at http://cacr.uwaterloo.ca/hac/
  • S. Gueron, Intel's Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) New Instructions Set.
• Links:
  • Link to the OWL authoring tutorial: http://owl.oit.umass.edu/gettingstarted/TrainingManual.pdf
    Arun's email: annamalai@ecs.umass.edu:
  • Online encryption/decryption tools http://cryptojs.altervista.org/
  • E. Styer's encryption/decryption tools http://people.eku.edu/styere/
• Course web page: All details regarding the course will be available at:
  http://euler.ecs.umass.edu/ece597.
• Grading:
  • Homework - 10%
  • Mid-term - 30%
  • Final Exam - 60% (Friday May 3, 2013, 4-6pm, Marston 220)