Advanced Cryptology

Advanced Cryptology is a CTY Lancaster course with a prerequisite of either CTY's Cryptology course or at least a B in Algebra II.

Course Description

From the CTY course catalog:

In today’s environment, data transmission and data security play an ever critical role in the global marketplace and national security. This course focuses on code making and code breaking. By examining vulnerabilities of encryption systems and writing their own code, students learn the complexity of topics ranging from securely transmitting personal information during online business transactions to decoding secret communiqués that threaten our collective welfare.

While Cryptology is mostly based around mechanical ciphers (Caesar wheel, Playfair grid) Advanced Cryptology focuses on computerized ciphers that have been in use within the past fifty years. The course is much more math-intensive than Cryptology, and more mathematical concepts are covered in order to facilitate the making and breaking of computerized codes. In addition to the Extended Euclidean Algorithm that was introduced in Cryptology, Advanced Cryptology utilizes methods of factorization and tests of the primality of numbers in order to break (or check the strength of) more difficult ciphers like the El Gamal or the McEliece ciphers. Students also write programs using Java to do a number of functions, ranging from solving a Caesar Shift cipher to converting temperature or even drawing a picture on the computer (as demonstrated by Weegee, LAN.10.1)

Class History

Originally started in Princeton on a trial, Advanced Cryptology has since moved to Lancaster, where Steven "Wizard" Earthbourne and David "Sideshow" Perry taught the first true offering of the course at LAN.10.1. One of the few CTY courses with two instructors, the twenty two students who took part formed the first ever COD2 class. Topics ranged from statistics to the M-209 machine, and there was a large Java programming element to the course.