Syllabus

Credits: 5

Schedule: 16.04.2019 - 23.05.2019

Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation): 

Camilla Hollanti

camilla.hollanti@aalto.fi

Office Y239 (meetings to be scheduled by email)

Details on the course content (applies in this implementation): 

We will tailor the course contents according to the background/wishes of the participants. Some topics we will study for sure are:

-Code-based cryptography. A short intro to coding theory will be provided first if needed.

-Privacy in distributed data storage (clouds, peer-to-peer networks, etc).

The only prerequisites required are linear algebra and enthusiasm! If the background of the students is sufficient and/or there is sufficient interest, we will also study algebraic lattice codes and wiretap channels.

I will give some lectures around these topics, and the students will provide their own input to the course based on topics to be agreed on together (e.g. presentations and/or written reports on some research papers). There might be some homework assignments, but no exam.

I have scheduled two sessions a week, some of which are lectures, while others are reserved for students' presentations or group work.

Elaboration of the evaluation criteria and methods, and acquainting students with the evaluation (applies in this implementation): 

I expect everyone to participate as many sessions as possible (absences only for good reason), as there will be no exam. The grading will be based on active participation and self-study via presentations and/or written reports. We will discuss this in more detail on the first lecture.

Details on calculating the workload (applies in this implementation): 

Two contact sessions per week, total 6x2 = 12h, the rest will consist of self-study and other offline work.

Details on the course materials (applies in this implementation): 

To get an idea on code-based crypto, watch this nice lecture by Prof. Tanja Lange:

If you need some intro to linear error-correcting codes first, see this and further links therein (or any introductory book on coding theory):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_code

If you are already somewhat familiar with (linear) coding theory (which is just linear algebra with finite fields!), you can take a glance at our recent work on private information retrieval from coded distributed storage systems:

https://epubs.siam.org/doi/pdf/10.1137/16M1102562

During the course, some lecture notes/slides and links to research papers will be provided.

Course Homepage (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020): 

https://mycourses.aalto.fi/course/search.php?search=MS-E1995

Grading Scale (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020): 

0-5

Details on the schedule (applies in this implementation): 

We will design the schedule in more detail as the course proceeds.

Description

Registration and further information