CORE 139 S04: Term Project

FSem 132

Methods and Issues in Cryptology

Fall 2005

Term Project

The term project can take several forms, depending on your interests. The two main choices are a research paper or a programming project. You can work togehter in pairs. You will do a presentation of your final project during the last week.

Research Paper

One possibility is a research paper on a topic related to cryptology, such as a historical issue, a social issue, or an ethical issue. Some possible topics:

cryptology in the ancient Arab world
cryptology during World War I
the PURPLE machine used by Japan in World War II
the role of the NSA (National Security Agency) in cryptology
deciphering of an ancient language
the key escrow debate
Zimmerman and PGP
machine cryptography

There are many other possibilities, and many of the topics listed above are quite broad. You should limit your topic to some area that can be covered in depth in 8-10 pages (1.5- or double-spaced). You should reference several sources, which may include books, journal articles, and Internet sources. At least two sources must be non-Internet sources.

Programming Project

If you a taking or have taken a programming class, you may choose to do a computer project. Such a project might involve writing a program to break a particular type of cipher or creating a program to allow the user to encrypt/decrypt using several different ciphers. Your code must be well documented, and you should include a short paper describing how to use your program(s).

Citing References

You must reference the source of any ideas which are not your own, whether or not you quote directly from the source. If you do not cite material that you use or if you cite it incorrectly, you are guilty of plagiarism. Some information on avoiding plagiarism can be found here .

You may use either footnotes, in-text citations, or another accepted system to reference ideas in the text (just be consistent). Information gathered through conversations with other people should be cited as personal communications. Works you have referenced in the text are also listed in a separate list appearing at the end of the paper. There are many styles for the list of references - you may choose any style, as long as it contains the relevant information and you use the same style for the whole list. You can find some information about both the in-text (also known as the author-date system) and footnote (or documentary-note) systems, as well as information on the list of references, can be found here.

Project Deadlines

Friday, Nov 14: Project topics: A one or two paragraph description of your intended project. If you are doing a research paper, a list of the sources you intended to use with a brief summary (a few sentences) of the contents and relevance of each source. If you are doing a computer project, an outline of the functionality and organization of your program including the different data types and functions.