CSIA 410 – Cryptology

Welcome to CSIA 410 Cryptology. In this class you will learn about cryptology which is the study or science of hiding and revealing hidden or secret messages. After completing this course you should have an operational understanding of basic cryptographic systems. Specifically you will learn about symmetric cryptography, block ciphers and secure hash functions, asymmetric cryptography, key exchange and public-key systems, and authentication.

This course description, like most course descriptions, is slightly problematic. It isn’t very helpful because it contains a list of terms like asymmetric public key encryption that will only make sense if you already know what they mean; otherwise the terms may sound like a bunch of gibberish. And if you already know what the terms mean then there’s a good chance that you already know quite a bit about cryptology so there may not be much point in taking the class. But don’t worry, if you don’t know what the terms mean you’ll learn about all of them in the class and by the end of the course description will make sense.