COMPSCI 880 - Graduate Cryptography, Fall 2026

Lecture Hall:  

Morgridge Hall 2516, 2:25-5:25PM Friday

Instructor :  

Rishab Goyal, rishab.goyal@wisc.edu

Course Description

The objective of this course is to provide an introduction to the theoretical and mathematical underpinnings of modern cryptographic toolset such as encryption, authentication, pseudorandomness, collision-resistance, etc. We will also discuss foundations of post-quantum cryptography as well as many advanced topics.


Textbook and Notes: The course has no required textbook. The textbook - "Introduction to Modern Cryptography" by Katz and Lindell is strongly recommended.

Resources:

Syllabus

Tentative Schedule

Note: Dates for topics should be considered tentative and some topics might require multiple lectures.

Lec No. Topic Other
1 History, Encryption, Perfect Secrecy, and IND-CPA Security
2 Pseudorandom Functions, Encryption, Hybrid Proofs and Reductions
3 Pseudorandom Generators and GGM construction
4 Hash Functions, Collision Resistance, and MACs
5 Computational Hardness, Modular Arithmetic, Fields, LWE, and One-Way Functions
6 (Dual) Regev Encryption, Leftover Hash Lemma, and Lattices
7 SIS, Hash Functions, Signatures, Random Oracles, and Lattice Trapdoors
8 Mid-term
9 Attribute-Based Encryption
10 Homomorphic Encryption
11 Lockable Obfuscation
12 Traitor Tracing
13 Project presentations