600.641 Special Topics in Theoretical Cryptography

Course Home Page General Information/Policies Course Materials by Lecture Date

Introduction and Review

Lecture 1 (Mon Jan 22): Introduction to Cryptography

• Scribe: Karyn Benson (pdf)
• Handout 1, General Information
• Handout 2, (Proposed) Schedule Until Spring Break
• Handout 3, Survey. Please return to get onto course mailing list.
• Assignments and scribe notes for this class MUST be typed. We highly recommend that you use LaTeX. Here is a useful document on how to use LaTeX.

Lecture 2 (Tues Jan 23): Complexity Theory Review and Interactive Proofs

• Scribe: Karyn Benson (pdf)

Lecture 3 (Mon Jan 29): Zero-Knowledge Proofs

• Scribe: Kevin Snow (pdf)

Lecture 4 (Tues Jan 30): Zero-Knowledge Proofs with auxiliary inputs and considering composition

• Scribe: Lori Kraus (pdf)

Lecture 5 (Mon Feb 5): Zero-Knowledge for all of NP

• Scribe: Lori Kraus (pdf)
• Handout 4, Problem Set 1. The scribing/homework template is recommended for typing your solutions.

Lecture 6 (Tues Feb 6): ZK Continued and Proofs of Knowledge

• Scribe: Kevin Snow (pdf)

Lecture 7 (Mon Feb 12): JHUISI Seminar by abhi shelat

• Building Non-Malleable Encryption Schemes by abhi shelat (IBM Zurich Research)
• Click here for an abstract.
• No scribe for today

Lecture 8 (Tues Feb 13): Snow Day

• Class canceled due to hazardous weather conditions
• Problem set #1 due on Friday Feb 16 by email to susan /at/ cs.jhu.edu

Holiday (Mon Feb 19): Presidents' Day

• No class today

Holiday (Tues Feb 20): No Class Today

• No class today

Lecture 9 (Mon Feb 26): PS#1, Trusted Setup, and ZK Arguments

• Scribe: Jen Lindsay (Scribe notes distributed by email only, since they contain solutions to PS#1.)

Lecture 10 (Tues Feb 27): Proofs of Knowledge and Proofs of Partial Knowledge

• Scribe: Jen Lindsay (pdf)

Lecture 11 (Mon Mar 5): Honest-Verifier ZK and Fiat-Shamir

• Scribe: Aylin Ryan (pdf)
• Handout 5, Problem Set 2. (Due on Wednesday, March 21.)

Lecture 12 (Tues Mar 6): Anonymous Credentials and Idemix

• Scribe: Aylin Ryan

Holiday (Mon Mar 12): Spring Break

• No class today

Holiday (Tues Mar 13): Spring Break

• No class today

Lecture 13 (Mon Mar 19): Oblivious Transfer

• Scribe: Adam McKibben (pdf)

Lecture 14 (Tues Mar 20): Secure Multiparty Computation

• Scribe: Adam McKibben (pdf)

Lecture 15 (Mon Mar 26): JHUISI Seminar by Moses Liskov

• Updatable Zero Knowledge Databases by Moses Liskov (College of William and Mary)
• Click here for an abstract
• Scribe: Josh Mason (pdf)
• Handout 6, Problem Set 3.

Lecture 16 (Tues Mar 27): Encryption

• Scribe: Scott Coull (Scribe notes distributed by email only, since they contain solutions.)

Lecture 17 (Mon Apr 2): Re-Encryption (given by Matt Green)

• Scribe: Zachary Scott (pdf)

Lecture 18 (Tues Apr 3): Program Obfuscation

• Scribe: Zachary Scott (pdf)

Lecture 19 (Mon Apr 9): Encryption beyond Semantic Security

• Scribe: Xuesong Chen

Lecture 20 (Tues Apr 10): Universal Composability

• Scribe: Xuesong Chen

Lecture 21 (Mon Apr 16): Current Research Talks

• SESSION 1: Privacy and Databases (Chair: Lucas Ballard)
  • Scott Coull: "On the Impossibility of Semantic Security for Databases" (Dwork, ICALP'06)
  • Kevin Snow: "When Random Sampling Preserves Privacy" (Chaudhuri-Mishra, CRYPTO'06)
• No scribe today

Lecture 22 (Tues Apr 17): Current Research Talks

• SESSION 2: Encryption and Attacks (Chair: Sam Small)
  • Josh Mason: "Hyper-encryption against Space-Bounded Adversaries from On-Line Strong Extractors" (Lu, CRYPTO'02)
  • Jennifer Lindsay: "On Multi-Authority Attribute Based Encryption" (Chase, TCC'07)
  • Ben Pick: "Private Circuits: Securing Hardware against Probing Attacks (Ishai-Sahai-Wagner, CRYPTO'03)
  • Adam McKibben: "Mitigating Dictionary Attacks on Password-Protected Local Storage" (Canetti-Halevi-Steiner, CRYPTO'06)
• No scribe today

Lecture 23 (Mon Apr 23): Current Research Talks

• SESSION 3: Zero Knowledge and Multiparty Computation (Chair: Reza Curtmola)
  • Karyn Benson: "Fair Zero-Knowledge" (Lepinski-Micali-shelat, TCC'05)
  • Zach Scott: "Security against Covert Adversaries" (Aumann-Lindell, TCC'07)
• No scribe today

Lecture 24 (Tues Apr 24): Current Research Talks

• SESSION 4: Authentication and Lattice-Based Cryptography (Chair: Seny Kamara)
  • Lori Kraus: "Concurrent Signatures" (Chen-Kudla-Paterson, EUROCRYPT'04)
  • Aylin Ryan: "CAPTCHA: Using Hard AI Problems for Security" (von Ahn-Blum-Hopper-Langford, EUROCRYPT'03)
  • Xuesong Chen: "Lattice-Based Cryptography" (Regev, CRYPTO'06)
• No scribe today
• This is the last day of class. ENJOY YOUR SUMMER!