Project:

• A research report ( about ten typed pages, double-spaced) on a topic in cryptology,
• A suitable book report (on a book you hadn't read before J-term) ( about ten typed pages, double-spaced), or
• Computer project
• A working computer program or programs that do some nontrivial, original cryptanalytic task(s),
• an accompanying user's manual, and
• a report on the theory, algorithms, etc. involved.

Written project proposals should be turned in Wednesday, Jan. 23. A preliminary bibliography should be submitted Friday, Jan. 25.

Possible topics:

• History:  cryptography or crytanalysis shaped history in a number of incidents, especially in time of war.
• The Enigma machine and Project Ultra
• The Tunney Machine
• Ancient Greek Ciphering Methods
• Ancient Languages
• Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Rosetta stone, decipherment of cunieform
• Linear B (a written language found in Crete)
• Mayan Hieroglyphics
• Navajo Code Talkers
• The Purple Machine, Project Magic, Battle of the Midway (see Code Breaking Spies video in GAC library)
• Blaise de Vigenere
• The Bacon Manuscript and the Baconian-Shakespearean Authorship Controversy
• The Cardano Grille
• Institutions
• The National Security Agency (NSA) see e.g. The Puzzle Palace or Body of Secrets by James Bamford
• NIST
• MI 6
• Bletchley Park
• "The American Black Chamber"
• People
  • Herbert Yardley
  • William Friedman
  • Agnes Meyer Driscoll
  • Alan Turing
  • Arne Beurling
  • Claude Shannon
• Controversies
• The Clipper chip/SkipJack (government proposed encryption scheme) controversy
• US cryptography export policy
• insecurity of wireless computing
• the new European Union privacy laws:  effects on web pages, etc.
• strong encryption:  pros and cons
• the contemporary concept of "electronic identity"
• The Key Escrow Debate
• FBI's "Carnivore" email surveillance system.
• Security/insecurity of the "Bluetooth" wireless protocol
• ECHELON:  America's Secret Global Surveillance Network
• Bible Codes
• Cryptology
• Cryptography
• Techniques,ciphers not covered by Sinkov or in class
• Quantum computing and quantum cryptology
• DNA encryption (and microdots)
• Signatures, authentication and non-repudiation protocols
• Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
• Data encryption
• The new Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
• The old Data Encryption Standard (DES) and/or other symmetric ciphers
• Data compression
• Error-correcting codes
• More on public key cryptography
• Public keys based on the knapsack-problem: failures and revisions
• El Gamal
• McEliece Public-Key cipher (based on coding theory issues)
• Number Theory and other mathematics
• Zero-knowledge proofs
• clever algorithms for large integer arithmetic
• Implementation of large-integer "fast" algorithms
• "Fast" factorization methods: rho method, p-1 method, continued fraction sieve, quadratic sieve, etc.
• Quadratic reciprocity
• Distribution of prime numbers
• Pseudo-random number generators
• Cryptology in literature

Read a few works of literature in which cryptography plays a role and critique the cryptographic aspects of the work.  A whole report could be centered on Poe and cryptography.   Relate the ideas in the story to cryptologic principles discussed in our class. Single short stories may not be "meaty" enough for this project.
• The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Adventure of the Dancing Men by A. Conan Doyle
• Cryptnomicon by Neal Stephenson
• The Egyptian Jukebox by Nick Bantock
• Enigma by Robert Harris
• Books
• Alan Turing:  The Enigma of Intelligence by Andrew Hodges
• The Code Book by Simon Singh

You should probably not choose this if you have already read the book.   In any event, you should read the review in the Notices of the AMS.  Also, see the report that the cipher challenge was cracked.
• Breaking the Maya Code by Michael Coe
• Codebreakers: Arne Beurling and the Swedish Crypto Program during World War II by Bengt Beckman

Suggestions for format of research report

This should describe very briefly the subject of your report. A clean statement of the facts should be given. You should have a listing of all the sections in your report. The sections should have descriptive titles.

All notation and terminology must be explicitly defined or references to textbooks where the definitions may be found (with explicit page numbers) must be given. Expansion of the basic facts. For a historical paper, a timeline might be given.

One or more sections discussing in depth your subject. Explain your algorithms in words, if a program. Prove a theorem if that's what your subject is about.

Example calculations, or output, or excerpts from texts.

Anything you can think of, or possible subjects this paper leads into. Contemporary consequences of historical subjects.  Projections about the future.

Return to MCS 150 Home