MATH3302: Coding and cryptography

Homepage

This is the home page for MATH3302, Semester 1, 2008, taught by Barbara Maenhaut.

Late breaking news

There will be some room changes to accommodate the project talks in the last two weeks. Click here for more info. The schedule of talks is available here. Please check it carefully, as I swapped the rooms for a few people (but not their chosen time) in order to evenly distribute duplicate topics.

Course material

General Course Information

• Course Profile
• Project Information: project specification, sample research report, list of previous project topics
• List of course content (for reference if you are thinking about a project topic)
• Course summary: Cryptography, Coding Theory
• Exam reference pages (the last two pages of the exam)
  
  

What have we covered?

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4 (No Friday lecture due to Good Friday)
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12
• Week 13

Cryptography

Handouts:

• Cryptography notes part 1
• Cryptography historical timeline
• Cryptography assignment part 1 (Note that everyone has an individual assignment so you will have to get your page of Vigenere ciphertext from Barbara in person or by email.)
• Cryptography notes part 2
• Cryptography notes part 3
• Cryptography assignment part 2
• Solutions to Cryptography assignment part 1
• AES specification paper by Brian Gladman
• Accompanying notes for the AES specification paper
• Cryptography notes part 4
• Solutions to Cryptography assignment part 2

Here are the known errors in the cryptography notes:

• There is a typo on page 25 of the notes. The formula for m in Friedman method 2 should have 0.065 in the denominator instead of 0.65.
• There is an error on page 35 of the notes. The permutation in Exercise 2.64 should be (13)(2546).
• There is a typo on page 39 of the notes. In Example 2.78, the value of the 8^th ciphertext letter should be 9 (corresponding to J).
• There is an error on page 89 of the notes. In Example 9.19 the line of text before the big table of calculations should say “and multiply the appropriate values” rather than “and add up the appropriate values”.

Michael Bulmer has a page of cryptography curios, available for you to solve. If you are the first to solve any of the unsolved ones, he will give you a mighty prize.

• curios.php: A collection of curios

Coding Theory

Handouts:

• Linear algebra revision (work through this yourself to ensure you have the appropriate background knowledge for coding theory)
• Coding Theory Notes Part 1
• Problem set 1 (with solutions)
• Problem set 2 (with solutions)
• Coding Theory Notes Part 2
• Problem set 3 (with solutions)
• Coding Theory Group assignment (completed in-class on Tuesday 29 April)
• Solutions to the Coding Theory Group assignment
• Coding Theory assignment
• “Decoding the Golay Code” by E.R. Berlekamp
• Coding Theory Notes Part 3
• Problem set 4 (with solutions)
• Solutions to the Coding Theory assignment

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