Winter 2008/2009

Cryptography deals with methods for secure data transfer. In earlier times this was the domain of military and intelligence agencies, but today modern cryptography has grown into a key technology, enabling e-commerce and secure internet communications. Its many applications range from credit and debit cards, mobile phones, tv decoders, and electronic money to unforgeable electronic signatures ...

This course is about various aspects of security in the internet.

• Who can read my email?
• How do I know that eBay is eBay, or amazon is amazon?
• What is the public key of Angela Merkel? Where do I get it and how do I verify that it's really hers?
• ...

In the internet a large variety of protocols ("chatting programs") are in use to make this or that `secure'. VPN, IPsec, SSL, PKI, PGP are just a few tokens that need explanations. We will try to understand a little of that and how things are used and made available.

Digital Right Managements (DRM) is the set of rules and techniques which help the producers of digital media to make sure that their products can be enjoyed by consumers but that intellectual property rights are being aspected. Currently DRM is concerned with actions like copy protection, licensing, tracking the frequency of use. The seminar deals with, but is not limited to the following topics: ...

This semester's seminar focusses on Zero-Knowledge and maybe PCP.

The seminar discusses subjects of current interest in computer security. Some of the lectures will be given by invited guests.