Senior Capstone I & II

Applied Cryptography & Information Security

CSc 59866/7: Fall '09–Spring '10

 The City College of CUNY
Department of Computer Science

Instructor: Nelly Fazio
Email: fazio AT cs DOT ccny DOT cuny DOT edu

Fall '09:
Lectures: M/W, 12:30am–1:45pm, NAC 7/219
Office hours: M/W, 2:00pm–3:00pm, SH 279

Spring '10:
Class Meetings: M 5:00pm–6:15pm & W 11:00am–12:15pm, NAC 7/107
Office hours: M 2:00pm–3:00pm, SH 279

[ Course Description | Course Objectives | List of Topics | Textbook | Work Load & Grading | Programming | Weekly Schedule ]

Course Description

In this two-semester course, students are grouped into teams to work on projects of practical importance in applied cryptography and information security. The first semester starts by covering the basic principles and practices of information security. Teams will pick a topic for their project, based on their interests and on discussions with the instructor. After reading a selection of papers on the chosen topic, each group will narrow down their focus and outline a working plan for the design, development, testing, evaluation, and deployment of their project. Teams will demonstrate their understanding of the principles and algorithms of their chosen area in a class presentation, and will prepare a project proposals with specific deliverables and milestones for the completion of their software project. The second semester will focus on the implementation of the proposed projects.

A list of possible topics and suggestions for specific project is provided below, however teams are welcome to propose other papers and topics. Each group should discuss the final choice of the topic and set of papers with the instructor.

PRE/COREQ: Senior year students only.

Course Objectives

Successful completion of this course trains the students in the following directions:

List of Topics (tentative)

Textbook

There is no required textbook.

Recommended textbooks:

Grading (Fall '09)

Grading (Spring '10)

Programming (Fall '09)

Projects will be written in Java, based on the SunSPOT technology.

Programming labs:

NOTE: Late assignment will not be accepted.

Weekly Schedule (Fall '09)

Lecture Date Topic Slides
1 Aug 31 Course Presentation. L1.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L1x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
2 Sept 2 Installing Sun SPOT Manager. Sun SPOT Manager
  Sept 7 No class! Labor Day.  
3 Sept 9 Introduction to Cryptography.
Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Setting.
The Information Theoretic Setting.		 L3.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L3x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
4 Sept 14 The Computational Setting.
Attacker goals and means.
Symmetric Encryption.		 L4.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L4x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
5 Sept 16 Block ciphers and Modes of Operations. L5.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L5x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
6 Sept 21 On SPOT devices:
AirText demo and variants (modified text and added new symbols).
On SPOT emulator:
Sawthooth demo and variants (modified LED color). 		 
7 Sept 23 On SPOT devices: Telemetry-onDesktop and Telemetry-onSpot.
On SPOT emulator: Count (part of EmulatorDemo). 		 
  Sept 28 No class!  
8 Sept 29
Monday schedule		 Security of Block Ciphers: Key Recovery and Indistinguishability.
Lab 1 has been posted 		L8.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L8x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
9 Sept 30 Real vs. Ideal Proof Technique.
Birthday Paradox and its bounds.		 L9.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L9x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
10 Oct 5 Students' presentations of Lab 1.  
11 Oct 7 On SPOT emulator and on SPOT devices:
UnicastCount and BroadcastCount (both part of EmulatorDemo). 		 
  Oct 12 No class! Columbus Day.
Lab 2 has been posted 		 
12 Oct 14
Monday schedule		 Data Integrity. Hash Functions. Message Authentication Codes. L12.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L12x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
13 Oct 19 Key Exchange Protocols: Merkle Puzzles L13.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L13x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
Oct 21 Rescheduled (November 11, 9:45–11:00am, NAC 8/207)  
14 Oct 26 Students' presentations of Lab 2.  
15 Oct 28 Key Exchange Protocols: Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange. L15.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L15x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
16 Nov 2 Asymmetric Encryption: Definition and Security. L16.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L16x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
17 Nov 4 ElGamal and RSA-OAEP encryption schemes. L17.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L17x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
18 Nov 9 Digital Signatures. Lamport's one-time signature scheme.
Hashed-RSA and Schnorr signature schemes. 		L18.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L18x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
19 Nov 11
(9:45–11:00am)		 On SPOT devices: Simplified PIN-based pairing of SPOTs.  
20 Nov 11 Commitment Schemes. L20.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L20x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
21 Nov 16 SPOTs Security.
Description of Lab 3.
Lab 3 has been posted 		 
22 Nov 18 PKI and Certificate Authority. L22.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L22x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
23 Nov 23 Discussion of teams projects.  
24 Nov 25 PKI in action: augmenting Lab 3 with a certification authority.  
25 Nov 30 Students' presentations of Lab 3 (PIN-based pairing).  
26 Dec 2 Discussion of teams projects.  
27 Dec 7 Shamir's Secret Sharing. Threshold Encryption. Threshold ElGamal. L27.pdf (for on-screen viewing)
L27x4.pdf (4-in-1 layout for printing)
28 Dec 9 Students' presentations of Lab 3 (Use of commitments for cheating prevention).  
  Dec 21
(10:30am–12:45pm) 		Presentations of teams' projects  

Copyright © Nelly Fazio