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= ELE 538:  Information Theoretic Security
[http://www.princeton.edu/~cuff/ Prof. Paul Cuff], [http://www.princeton.edu/ee/ Princeton University], Fall Semester 2016-17.


== Course Description

This course focuses on secure communication built on information theory, which does not assume that an adversary has computational limitations.  We will begin from the basics of information theory, which will provide a foundation for the study of modern research on physical-layer security, secret key agreement, secure source coding, and differential privacy.  Various information metrics for security will be compared.  Prior exposure to information theory is a plus but not a requirement.

Prerequisites:  Basic Probability.


([https://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course_details.xml?courseid=002541&term=1172 registrar course listing])

== Topics

Information-theoretic security and cryptograph (basic introduction to Diffie-Hellman, AES, and side-channel attacks)

Optimality of one-time-pad for perfect secrecy in Shannon cipher

Basic information theory (entropy, mutual information, channel capacity, rate distortion theory, tools for proofs, some multi-user settings to introduce superposition codes and random binning)

Wyner's wiretap channel (also with arbitrarily-varying state and random state)

Secrecy metrics (strong, weak, semantic security, partial secrecy)

Recent new tools (likelihood encoder and soft covering)

Secret key agreement (one direction of public communication, two-way, unlimited rate, and quantum key exchange)

Secure source coding:  rate-distortion theory for secrecy systems

Secure source coding:  side information at receivers

Differential privacy

Distributed channel synthesis


== Teaching Staff

=== Instructor

[http://www.princeton.edu/~cuff/ Prof. Paul Cuff] \n
Office location:  B-316 E-quad \n
Office hours:  T/Th 3-4pm



== Time and Location

=== Lectures
Room:  B-205 E-Quad \n
T/Th 1:30-2:50pm



== Text

No textbook purchase is required.

The following textbook is a useful general resource for information theory:

[http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Information-Theory-Telecommunications-Processing/dp/0471062596 Elements of Information Theory, second edition,]  Cover and Thomas.
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{}{img_left}{eitcover.jpg}{Picture of Textbook}{66}{100}{https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Information-Theory-Telecommunications-Processing/dp/0471241954}
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The next two textbooks are good research references, covering a wide variety of relevant results.  Both cover some of the same content, although the second introduces more tools specific to security.

[http://www.amazon.com/Network-Information-Theory-Professor-Abbas/dp/1107008735 Network Information Theory,]  El Gamal and Kim.
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{}{img_left}{nitcover.gif}{Picture of Textbook}{70}{100}{http://www.amazon.com/Network-Information-Theory-Professor-Abbas/dp/1107008735}
~~~

[http://www.amazon.com/Physical-Layer-Security-Information-Theory-Engineering/dp/0521516501 Physical-Layer Security,]  Bloch and Barros.
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{}{img_left}{plscover.jpg}{Picture of Textbook}{70}{100}{http://www.amazon.com/Physical-Layer-Security-Information-Theory-Engineering/dp/0521516501}
~~~

Also, Curt Schieler and I wrote a chapter for a textbook about [files\Secure_Source_Coding.pdf secure source coding].


== Blackboard

[http://blackboard.princeton.edu Blackboard] may be used for problem sets and reporting grades but not much else.