MAT 460 Mathematical Cryptography
3 hours
This course is the capstone of the cryptography concentration in the Applied Mathematics major. It provides the necessary background for aspiring cryptographers to begin to compose and analyze their own cryptographic schema. The student’s entire mathematical skill set is brought to bear upon the analyses and application of several cryptographic algorithms in order to understand why they are effective and what may make them vulnerable. Students develop several statistical and Markov models that are used in the cryptanalysis of cipher text in order to reconstruct the (original) plain text. Grades are determined by their performance on projects of increasing difficulty that are assigned throughout the semester. The final project is a substantive problem relevant to contemporary application in fields such as finance, digital communications, or data security.