This lecture is on the development of the theory of modern cryptography -- the mathematics behind secret communications and computation. I will describe the complexity theoretic foundations underlying the cryptographic tasks of encryption, generating pseudo-randomness, and zero knowledge interactive proofs, highlighting the paradigms and proof techniques which unify these foundations, and which have made their way into the mainstream of complexity theory. We will point out connections with coding theory and complexity theory.

Short Bio

Shafi Goldwasser is the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in MIT, a co-leader of the cryptography and information security group and a member of the complexity theory group within the Theory of Computation Group and the Laboratory for Computer Science.