Fall 2006:

CS 6463, AT: Applied Cryptography

Instructor

Shouhuai Xu

What's New?

• none
  

Office

Science Building 4.01.46

Office hour

tba

When, at where

TR 7:00 -- 8:15 PM, tba

Course objectives

• This is a research-oriented course. The students are to be introduced to some cutting-edge research topics.
  
• This year's emphasis is on Cryptographic Key Infrastructures, with a particular emphasis on Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs).
• The instructor will give you specific problems, each of which, if done right, can lead to a publishable result.
• The instructor will work closely with the students throughout thie semester.
  

Grading policy (tentative)

• Student presenting papers (10%; one presentation per student)
  
• Project proposal (10%: one proposal per team)
• Project proposal presentation (10%: one presentation per team)
• Final project report (20%; one report per team)
• Take-home exam (10%; 5% each)
• Closed-book exam (20%: one exam)
  
• Final project presentation (with demo, if applicable) (10%; one presentation per team)
• Attendance (10%; for the ith absence, -i)

How it works?

• The instructor will give the specifications of a set of projects in the context of PKIs.
• The students are encouraged to form teams of 2 - 4 people. Each team works on a sub-project. Each team needs a volunteer to lead and coordinate the progress of the corresponding sub-project, and serve as the point-of-contact of the team with the instructor or the designated research assistant.
• Each project will involve the problem identification, proposal, design and analysis and implementation, and final report writing. Each project will produce a written proposal of final technical report (i.e., one copy per team).
  
• Collaboration with your classmates is encouraged. However, if you do not choose to work on the projects setup by the instructor, you must come up with your own project that is compatible. This must be approved by the instructor in advance. Also, if you want to work alone, you need to get pre-approval from the instructor.
• Each team needs to meet with the instructor (or a designated research assistant) periodically (e.g., once every one or two weeks).
• There is no textbook; the instructor will provide all the necessary materials.
  

How should I prepare the proposal/final report?

• The instructor or the designated research assistant will be involved in the preparation of both proposal and final projects.
  

Course schedule (tentative, subject to change)

[Special acknowledgments: The lectures will adopt many materials, in one way or another, from many colleagues in the research community. I will acknowledge them on the first slide of each lecture by pointing to the appropriate source, if available. Many thanks, folks!]

1. Aug. 24, Overview of the Course
2. Aug. 29, Discussion of suggested projects
   
3. Aug. 31, What is Cryptographic Key Infrastructure? What is Public Key Infrastructure? Why do we need them?
   
4. Sept. 5, Cryptographic basics I: hash functions
   
5. Sept. 7, Cryptographic basics II: block ciphers, stream ciphers, and symmetric key cryptosystems
   
6. Sept. 12, Crytographic basics III: digital signatures
   
7. Sept. 14, Cryptographic basics IV: Message authentication schemes
   
8. Sept. 19, Cryptographihc basics V: Public key cryptosystems
   
9. Sept. 21, The certificate revocation problem I
   
10. Sept. 26, The certificate revocation problem II
    
11. Sept. 28, The certificate revocation problem III
    
12. Oct. 3, Identity certificates
    
13. Oct. 5, Attribute certificates
    
14. Oct. 10, Privacy-friendly certificates
    
15. Oct. 12, Identity-based certificates
    
16. Oct. 17, Trusted Computing
    
17. Oct. 19, Can Trused Computing solve the PKI problem?
    
18. Oct. 24, OS security and PKI
    
19. Oct. 26, Identity safety and PKI I
    
20. Oct. 31, Identity safety and PKI II
    
21. Nov. 2, Kleptography
    
22. Nov. 7, Cryptovirus and PKI I
    
23. Nov. 9, Cryptovirus and PKI II
    
24. Nov. 14, PKI vs. Symmetric Key Management I
    
25. Nov. 16, PKI vs. Symmetric Key Management II
    
26. Nov. 21, Trusted Path and PKI
    
27. Nov. 23, Peer-to-peer security and PKI
    
28. Nov. 28, Privacy-friendly PKI
    
29. Nov. 30, Survivability of PKI I
    
30. Dec. 5, Survivability of PKI II
    
31. Dec. 7,
32. Dec. 12,
33. Dec. 14

Suggested projects / lecture slides / reading list

Useful stuff

ePrint of International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR)
Shafi Goldwasser and Mihir Bellare's Lecture Notes on Cryptography
Oded Goldreich's Foundations of Cryptography
Handbook of Cryptography
Bruce Schenier's Applied Cryptography