Welcome to CS 355: Topics in Cryptography — Spring 2026! Please note this is different from CS 355 offered last year. See this offering’s schedule for more details.

CS 355: Topics in Cryptography


Stanford University — Spring 2026

Stanford students have been behind some of the most important developments in modern cryptography, including Diffie-Hellman key exchange, Merkle trees, ElGamal encryption, and fully homomorphic encryption. With this history in mind, CS355 will cover many of the foundational techniques that you will need to get started with crypto research and to go on to solve the field’s great open problems. It will also introduce you to the joy of cryptography research and give you a taste of the latest developments in cryptography. By the time you finish this course, you should understand the most important cryptographic tools and be able to use them.

We will cover basic proof techniques, zero knowledge, multiparty computation, elliptic-curve cryptography, cryptanalysis, privacy, and post-quantum cryptography.

Lecture details

Location: 200-203
Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:30 – 2:50 pm

Note

Lecture notes will be posted, but the lectures will not be recorded. Attendance is strongly encouraged.

Info

Latest updates

First day of class: Monday, March 30

Come to class! Sign up for Ed and Gradescope.

Commmunication

We will primarily use Ed for sending out course announcements and answering questions. Please make sure to sign up.
Additional contact information, as well as the office hours, are available on the Course Staff page.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites

  • CS 255, or an equivalent introductory cryptography course.
  • Curiosity about cryptography and excited to study some beautiful theory and clever cryptographic constructions :)