6.889  Advanced Topics in the Theory of Cryptography

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6.889  Advanced Topics in the Theory of Cryptography

Fall 2016

Instructors: Shafi Goldwasser, Alon Jonathan Cohen, Justin L Holmgren, Sunoo Park, Adam Sealfon

Lecture:  Tue/Thu 1-2.30  (Room 1-190)
Office Hours:  Mon 5:15 - 6:15  (Room 36-153)      

Information: 

This course will cover a variety of topics in cryptography that are often not included in an introductory course. Topics will include multi-party computation, delegation of computation, homomorphic encryption, functional encryption, and obfuscation, in addition to a number of topics in the foundations of cryptography. Though in some respects a sequel to 6.875, this course will be self contained and should be accessible to a student with a background in theoretical computer science or sufficient mathematical maturity.

Logistics:

This Stellar webpage will be used to manage class announcements, problems, lecture notes and other materials.

The webpage found here will contain the most up-to-date course schedule and a scribe sign-up and schedule, along with other useful information.

Cryptography background:

We will not spend substantial time covering some of the basic concepts of cryptography, and expect that if necessary, you will familiarize yourself with them in the first 2-3 weeks of the course. We welcome any questions about these concepts at office hours, or by appointment. A very thorough, and clear, resource on many of these topics are the "Lecture Notes on Cryptography" by Goldwasser and Bellare (found here ).

The main notions of importance are: one-way functions (Sections 2.1, 2.2.1, 2.2.5, 2.4), pseudorandomness, pseudorandom generators, and computational indistinguishability (Section 3.1), familiarity with cryptography-style definitions (e.g., Sections 5.3, 6.4), and familiarity with hybrid arguments (e.g, 3.2). Later in the course, pseudorandom functions, collision-resistant hash functions, and digital signatures may arise.

Problems:

Every week there will be 1-2 problems associated with the lectures of that week (about 20 total). The problems are intended to show understanding rather than to be technically super challenging (i.e., less than a page to write up solution, roughly 1 hr/problem). If after an hour you're stuck, email us and/or come to office hours. We will gladly work through it with you.

The problems will be posted after lecture on Stellar, We expect you to hand in 80% of the problems (rounded up, about 16 total) due the week following the date they were posted (the due dates might change, as we figure out the schedule for office hours). Problems will be marked P/F. Put thought into answering the problems and turn them in on time; other than that don't worry about the grading of the problems.

With each problem we will provide a link to a short anonymous survey (< 1 min to complete). After completing each problem, we ask that you complete the survey. This will help us gauge the difficulty and value of the problems.

Scribe Notes:

Each student will be required to scribe 1-2 lectures (depending on enrollment). We ask that you send us a preliminary draft of the notes by the day following the lecture. This draft may be incomplete, but should contain the main ideas (e.g., important definitions, theorem statements, and constructions); The discussion and technical details may be deferred. We will post these notes (unproofed) as soon as we get them.

The completed scribe notes should be sent as soon as possible, within about a week.

A template .tex file can be found under "Materials."

Announcements