Quantum Algorithms and Cryptography

By Prof. Shweta Agrawal | IIT Madras

Learners enrolled: 736 | Exam registration: 6

ABOUT THE COURSE:

The course will cover the exciting impact on cryptography created by the advent of quantum computers. Quantum computers, which harness the power of quantum mechanics, have demonstrated surprising power over classical computers -- in particular, a famous algorithm by Shor demonstrates that most of modern cryptography, believed to be secure against classical computers, is completely insecure against quantum computers. Moreover, significant progress has been made in recent times to develop quantum computers, so it is an urgent need to base cryptography on problems that remain hard against quantum attackers.

In this course, we will study the foundations of quantum computing and the important role of quantum computers in cryptography. We will study the basics of quantum computing, speedups offered by quantum algorithms, classical cryptography and how it is broken by quantum computers, design of cryptosystems resilient to quantum attacks and cryptographic protocols using quantum physics, such as quantum key distribution, quantum public key encryption and quantum fully homomorphic encryption.

PREREQUISITES: Theory of Computation, Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Foundations of Cryptography

Summary

Course Status :	Upcoming
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Computer Science and Engineering Cyber Security
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	20 Jan 2025
End Date :	11 Apr 2025
Enrollment Ends :	27 Jan 2025
Exam Registration Ends :	14 Feb 2025
Exam Date :	27 Apr 2025 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Basics of Quantum Information

Week 2: Entanglement, No Cloning, Quantum Parallelism.

Week 3: Quantum Algorithms: Deutsch-Jozsa, Simons, Bernstein-Vazirani,

Week 4: Introduction to Cryptography, principles of cryptographic design, building cryptography from RSA, Discrete Log

Week 5: Key exchange, Symmetric and public key encryption, Random Oracle Model, RSA and Elgamal encryption

Week 6: Boolean Fourier Analysis, Grover's Algorithm, Quantum Foruier Transform

Week 7: Shor's Algorithm, Hidden subgroup problem

Week 8: Post Quantum Crypto: Introduction to lattices, Useful Lattice Problems. Learning with Errors and Short Integer Solution problem. Connection to dihedral hidden subgroup problem.

Week 9: Public key encryption and fully homomorphic encryption

Week 10: Quantum key distribution, Quantum one time pad

Week 11: Quantum public key encryption

Week 12: Quantum fully homomorphic encryption

Books and references

Research papers and online lecture notes

Instructor bio

Prof. Shweta Agrawal

IIT Madras

Dr. Shweta Agrawal is an associate professor at the Computer Science and Engineering department, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. She earned her PhD at the University of Texas at Austin, and did her postdoctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her area of research is cryptography and information security, with a focus on post quantum cryptography. She has won multiple awards and honours such as the Swarnajayanti award, the ACM India award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing by a Woman, a best paper award at Eurocrypt, best reviewer awards for Asiacrypt and CCS, invited speaker at prestigious conferences like Asiacrypt, Latincrypt and “Women in Mathematics” and program co-chair for the flagship conference Asiacrypt.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: April 27, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Madras .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

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