Honors Codes and Ciphers

Catalog description

The course introduces students to basic techniques of classical and modern cryptography, and learn about the significant impact of codes and ciphers on historical events. Topics will include the Vignère cipher, affine ciphers, Hill ciphers, one-time pad encryption, Enigma, public key encryption schemes (RSA, Diffie-Hellman, elliptic curves), and cryptographic hash functions. The course will include an introduction to algebraic structures and number theoretic tools used in cryptography. Students in this honors course will also study and explore historical source documents to get first-hand exposure to critical aspects of cryptanalysis from the early to mid-20th century.