Codes Fr The Past A General Intro To Hist Of Cryptography

AY2021/2022 Semester 1

The course introduces fundamental topics in History of Cryptography and Language Decipherment. It would consist of a basic introduction to classical Cryptography, from the origins (Antiquity, in the West and in the East) to the Second World War, aimed essentially at providing the students a general and accurate overview about Cryptography as a science and cultural phenomenon, dealing with the history of this discipline and encryption and decryption methods developed over time by Cryptographers. The teaching activity will be also substantiated by the application of general principles of combinatorial analysis and encryption techniques. Moreover, the course would have a focus on deciphering techniques applied not only to cryptographic systems, but also to ancient undeciphered languages and writing systems. A particular attention will be given to the study of the History of Cryptography and of the developments of this discipline, in the West and in the East, over time. The course will introduce, therefore, the study of Cryptography in a historical and theoretical way, analyzing the general and original principles of this science, but also dealing with the direct application of those principles (with the support of practical models useful to directly experiment encryption and deciphering techniques). The topic will be approached in a very general and all-embracing way, starting from the basic principles and from the origins of Cryptography and broadening the analysis to the contribution of Cryptography to the scientific progress of communications, security systems, and computer sciences.