Codebreaking at Cal

Welcome to the Spring 2023 iteration of Codebreaking At Cal! This course is designed as an upper-division introduction to the field of cryptography, which is the science of secure communication (secret messages, encryption, digital signatures, and much more).

Lectures are once weekly on Monday 6:30 - 8 PM in Soda 306. Zoom link

Assignment Extension Request Form: https://bit.ly/codebreaking-extension

Week 1

1/23: Lecture Intro to Classical Cryptography (Slides, Recording); Note Note 1; Lab Lab 1; Homework Homework 1 (Solutions); Makeup Assignment Makeup Assignment 1 (Solutions)

Week 2

1/30: Lecture Information Theory and Randomness (Slides, Recording); Note Note 2; Lab Lab 2; Homework Homework 2 (Solutions); Makeup Assignment Makeup Assignment 2 (Solutions)

Week 3

2/6: Lecture Block and Stream Ciphers (Slides, Recording); Note Note 3; Lab Lab 3; Homework Homework 3 (Solutions); Makeup Assignment Makeup Assignment 3 (Solutions)

Week 4

2/13: Lecture Hashing and Message Authentication Codes (Slides, Recording); Note Note 4; Lab Lab 4; Homework Homework 4 (Solutions); Makeup Assignment Makeup Assignment 4 (Solutions)

Week 5

2/27: Lecture Introduction to Asymmetric Cryptography (Slides, Recording); Note Note 5; Lab Lab 5; Homework Homework 5 (Solutions); Makeup Assignment Makeup Assignment 5 (Solutions)

Week 6

3/6: Lecture Discrete Log, Factorization, and Hardness Assumptions (Slides, Recording); Note Note 6; Lab Lab 6; Homework Homework 6; Makeup Assignment Makeup Assignment 6

Week 7

3/20: Lecture Digital Signatures, Public Key Infrastructure (Slides); Note Note 7; Lab Lab 7; Homework Homework 7; Makeup Assignment Makeup Assignment 7

Week 8

3/27: Lecture Elliptic Curve Cryptography; Note Note 8; Lab Lab 8; Homework Homework 8

Week 9

4/10: Lecture Post-Quantum Cryptography; Note Note 9; Project Final Project

Week 10-13

4/17 - 4/24: Lecture Special Topics (TBD); Project Final Project