Math 480, Spring 2015

From cartan.math.umb.edu

Course information[edit]

  • See the syllabus for general information and the schedule of readings.
  • Class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. in W-1-31.
  • Textbook: Jeffrey Hoffstein, Jill Pipher, and Joseph H. Silverman, An Introduction to Mathematical Cryptography.
  • Instructor: Steven Jackson.
  • Office: S-3-82
  • Office hours: by appointment.
  • E-mail: jackson@math.umb.edu.
  • Telephone: (617) 287-6469.

Important dates[edit]

  • First midterm: Thursday, March 12.
  • Second midterm: Thursday, April 16.
  • Final exam: Thursday, May 21, 11:30-2:30, in W-1-31.

Additional resources[edit]

Alternative presentations of some of the algorithms we discuss in class are available in the following texts:

  • Johannes A. Buchmann, Introduction to Cryptography, Springer, 2001.
  • Douglas R. Stinson, Cryptography: Theory and Practice, Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2006.

How to use this page[edit]

Below you will find links to the weekly assignment pages. Each of these pages is editable by anyone in the class, so apart from telling you what problems to work on they are excellent spaces in which to ask questions. (If you are very shy you may ask your questions privately, either by email or in person. But we will all work more efficiently if you ask them on the wiki, so that each question only needs to be answered once.) It is also extremely helpful to try to answer questions posed by other students. I will monitor these pages to ensure that no wrong answers go uncorrected.

If you are not already familiar with them, you may wish to read about wiki markup and typesetting mathematics. Also, you may wish to add this page and the assignment pages to your watchlist using the link in the upper right corner of each page, then change your preferences to enable e-mail notifications; this way you will know about page activity without constantly re-checking all the pages.

Coding assignment[edit]

Coding Assignment has the list of algorithms required to complete the coding assignment in lieu of taking the final.

Weekly assignments[edit]