Cryptology/plaintext

Cryptology is CTY's newest math course. It offers an engaging curriculum, combining mathematical and historical background with hands-on cryptography and cryptanalysis. With over two thousand years of code-making and code-breaking to experience, the subject is anything but dull. As a result, Cryptology has spread like wildfire, to nearly every CTY site, but has it spread too fast for its own good?

Cryptology is a Math course in the CTY program with no prerequisites. Its course code is CODE, and it is offered at Carlisle, Lancaster, and Los Angeles.

Course Description

Cryptology (the subject) is the study of codes and ciphers: making them and breaking them. Cryptology offers an engaging curriculum, combining mathematical and historical background with hands-on cryptography and cryptanalysis, and looks at over two millenia of ciphers. The course begins with the distinction between codes and ciphers. Students learn the details of some of the most historically important ciphers, some dating back to Julius Caesar, others as cutting-edge as quantum computing. In order to fully understand these ciphers, and to learn to break them in particular, some mathematical background is needed. Students will accumulate an arsenal of techniques in probability, combinatorics, and number theory, to be properly armed against the onslaught of ciphers. In addition to going up against some of cryptography's greatest hits, students will also apply the principles of of cryptography to design their own codes and ciphers. In short, the "Black Chambers" of yore are conveniently brought to the CTY classroom.

One thing that sets Cryptology apart from other math courses at CTY is its interdisciplinary nature. Although the emphasis in the course is on mathematics, many cryptanalytic techniques bring linguistics into play as well. Furthermore, each cipher has its place in history: royals have been executed, treasures have remained hidden, and battles have been decided by the strength or weakness of a cipher. These features give Cryptology great crossover appeal, and make Cryptology an excellent choice for a student who has some interest in math, but is wary of taking courses involving more intensive mathematics.

Class History

The history of Cryptography (the course) is brief, but compelling. In 2000, Stefan Treatman, then a Calculus instructor at Lancaster, was inspired by his work at the NSA, and filled out a proposal for a new course in cryptology. Normally, it takes two years or more for a course proposal to become a newly offered course, but the year-round staff at Baltimore was particularly interested in offering a new math course, and they were sufficiently impressed by Stefan's proposal that they set things up for Cryptology to be offered at Lancaster in 2001. In Session 1, two sections of Cryptology were offered: one was taught by Stefan, while "Sideshow" David Perry taught the other. Both men were working at the NSA during the rest of the year, so they were eminently suited to teach the (unclassified) details of codes, both historic and modern.

The first session of Cryptology was a great success. In fact, the course proved to be so popular, that when Sideshow had to teach Number Theory in Session 2, leaving but a single section of Cryptology, the administration considered hiring a second TA for Stefan, so he could teach a double-sized class. Stefan wound up teaching a regular class with a single TA that session, but things were looking bright for the future of the course. The next year, Cryptology was exported to other sites. Sideshow, who was a veteran instructor at Lancaster, was asked to teach Crypto in Carlisle for one sesison of 2002. The expansion continued, and now, Cryptology is offered at six of the eight sites. This makes Cryptology the most widely taught math course, equal in site coverage to Game Theory, and more prevalent than Math Sequence.

In 09.2 (Dan wonders, which site? - Daria answers, Carlisle) Cryptology A and Latin had an ongoing fight on the most creative way to call in the students. Latin's original call was "LATIN! Let's Go!" while Cryptology had none. The Crypto class then butchered the Latin language to create a binary call in Latin. In the last week of class Latin staged an elaborate call while Crypto did theirs and retreated inside the building. To this day Latin and Crypto students insist that their class won, while we all know who the real winners were. GO CRYPTO!

In 09.2 at Lancaster, a student from Cryptology A named Steven Kwon forgot the term for a known or suspected plaintext (a crib). He instead called it a "blum." His classmates found this quite amusing, and blum became a popular all-purpose word among CODE A-ers. Later on in the session, both CODE A and B classes took a field trip to the National Cryptologic Museum. In the museum there was a wall covered in plaques engraved with names, and one of the people honored on these plaques had the last name "Blum." Whoever you are, Mr. T. Blum, we CTY you.

In 10.1 at Lancaster, there was a particularly friendly group of students in CODE C. These students decided to sing a song commonly sung about THEO's TA, Dimby, about their most magnificent and all-knowing TA, Zydney, whom they viewed with much respect. This led to many shouting matches between THEO and CODE C. This class was also responsible for setting the latest record for cracking the Enigma thanks to having a student from Germany. Many shenanigans during 10.1 took place with regards to CODE C and the students were well known around campus between both CTYers and prospective F&M students for quacking quite often.

Instructors

Although the math involved in Cryptology is, in general, not too complicated, the applications are rather specialized. Thus, Cryptography demands an instructor with some degree of specialization as well. While both of the instructors at Lancaster are experts in the field, other sites have not been so lucky. Since Cryptology has partially displaced Math Sequence at many sites, some sections outside Lancaster have had instructors with little experience outside the high school curriculum. In one unfortunate instance, one session in 2002 was so poorly taught that many parents asked for a tuition refund -- and got one. Other instructors contacted Stefan or Sideshow for guidance. Hopefully, as Cryptology grows older, its instructors will be more familiar with the material, but be careful for now. If you are planning to take Cryptology at a site other than Lancaster, you may want to ask others who took it at the same site about their instructor. If you are uncertain, I must stress that the curriculum is quite engaging, and just might make up for a mediocre instructor. At Los Angeles, the Cryptology course is home to the famed TA, Victor.

The Turing Spatula

The Turing Spatula is an item at Lancaster Session 2 CODE B that is passed down every year. In 2008, the Crypto TA Jake wanted to play basement table tennis, but didn't have any rackets. He had the brilliant idea of going to the salvation army and buying spatulas to use instead. The spatulas were a great success. However, there was one spatula left over that sat in the crypto classroom for a week. On the last full day of class, CODE B was taking their final, which is a code-breaking-while-running-around-campus extravaganza. At one station, the decoded message was "alanturing," after the great Alan Turing, the cryptanalyst who cracked the Enigma. For some reason, four out of the five teams of students were not able to pronounce "alanturing" correctly. They pronounced it as aLANturing or Alan TOOOOring. Only one team said it correctly. Jake the TA decided to name the leftover spatula "The Turing Spatula" and gave it to the nomore Veronica Stewart, who had been on that one team and had been an excellent member of the class. However, Veronica felt that there would be other students in Cryptology in future years who would also be deserving of the spatula, so she gave it to the onemore Michaela Shelton, who brought it back the following year and gave it to Tortoise (the teacher), who passed it down to another student.

The spatula is given to a returning student who is an enthusiastic and committed member of the class and who Tortoise thinks would appreciate it. The spatula is given to the new holder on the final class on Friday. It is traditional for the previous holder to hug the unsuspecting future-holder that Friday morning before class and say "Enjoy the spatula" and walk away without explaining anything. This results in much confusion on the part of the soon-to-be holder. By this time, the previous holder had, of course, returned the spatula to Tortoise and inquired about the new holder. This is a very new tradition and we will see how long it lasts.

The holders of the spatula have been:

• 2008-09: Veronica Stewart/Michaela Shelton
• 2009-10: Ella Park-Chan
• 2010-11: Maria Shea