One exam down, four to go ...
I just finished writing my CO487 "Applied Cryptography" Final. We had zero luck getting our hands on a previous term's final, so here are some tips for students of future terms:
- Know authentication trees. Hardly mentioned in class, but the topic has appeared on the last two finals.
- Don't bother learning finite field arithmetic. Your only chance to get this right was on the midterm. (Too bad for Matt and Ben -- they learned it too late.)
- Some questions on any final have to be "thinking" questions, ones you've never seen before, and no matter how much you studied you couldn't just "know" the answer. Check out the exercises in the prof's book for examples.
- Know the "square-and-multiply" algorithm for modular exponentiation.
- Know the generic pseudo random bit generator construction and proof of its cryptographic strength.
- Practice forging MACs. Especially know the weaknesses in the HMAC algorithms (pre-pending key, post-pending key, envelope)
- Obvious stuff like definitions.
P.S. This is the most practical course I've taken so far and so I highly recommend it to anyone. When you graduate, start your own company, and invent your own killer-app, chances are your product will need/use cryptography. Take CO487 and you will use what you learn out in the real world.
11:23:26 PM 
|
|
