CSI 4108 / SEC 5101: Cryptography

University of Ottawa, Fall 2026

Recent Announcements

Teaching Staff

name email office office hour
Andrej Bogdanov
instructor
abogdano@uottawa.ca SITE 5068 We 2–4
Lorenzo Taschin
corrector
ltasc072@uottawa.ca SITE 4035

Course Description

Crytpography is the science of secure communication and computation over insecure channels like the internet. It is made possible by assymetry of information (secret keys), or limited computational resources, or usually both. We will cover the basics of private and confidential communication: encryption, message authentication, signatures, and identification. Emphasis will be put on the conceptual underpinnings of these precarious mechanisms (pseudorandom generators, collision-resistant hash functions) over concrete implementation details.

Schedule

week topic
1 Sep 10 Cryptanalysis
2 Sep 15
Sep 17
The postulates of cryptography
3 Sep 22
Sep 24
Pseudorandomness
4 Sep 29
Oct 1
Encryption
5 Oct 6
Oct 8
Ciphers
6 Oct 13
Oct 15
Public-key encryption
Oct 20
Oct 22
Review
Midterm Exam
Oct 27
Oct 29
Reading Week
7 Nov 3
Nov 5
Message authentication
8 Nov 10
Nov 12
Digital signatures
9 Nov 17
Nov 19
Identification
10 Nov 24
Nov 26
Private data release
11 Dec 1
Dec 3
Cryptography and machine learning
Dec 8 Review

Homeworks, Quizzes, and Exams

Homeworks won't be graded. The problems are provided for practice only. I strongly encourage you to attempt the questions and write solutions. You are encouraged to seek feedback from the corrector. If you choose to please do so within a week of posting. A quiz related to the homework will be given in the first 20 minutes of class the following week.

Course Information

References