An introduction to the basic concepts and techniques of cryptography and cryptanalysis. Topics include: The Shannon Theory, classical systems, the enigma machine, the data encryption standard, public key systems, digital signatures, file security.

Prerequisites: Computer Science 24 with a grade of C or better; Computer Science 40 with a grade of C or better; and PSTAT 120A or 121A or ECE 139 or permission of instructor.

4

Units

Letter

Grading

1, 2, 3

Passtime

None

Level Limit

Engineering

College
These majors only cmpsc cmpen
Prabhanjan Ananth
3.6
12 reviews
GIRV 1119
F
10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
33 / 38

GIRV 1115
F
11:00 AM - 11:50 AM
35 / 38

GIRV 1112
F
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM
33 / 37

PHELP3505
F
13:00 PM - 13:50 PM
35 / 37

Winter 2024 . Gupta T
CHEM 1171
T R
15:30 PM - 16:45 PM
See All
CMPSC 178 Ananth P V Winter 2025 Total: 110
CMPSC 178 Ananth P V Winter 2023 Total: 19
See All
12
3.6
CMPSC138 . 3 Months Ago

This is for 178 not 138 but bro I love this guy he's so approachable with questions compared to the other egotistical professors and he actually cares about the students and made cryptography super chill

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
CS138 . 6 Months Ago

Prof. Ananth is a great professor! His class was well-organized and had clear lectures. He provides a course schedule with textbook sections (the Sipser one is excellent). All the topics build off each other and the material gets harder, so try to keep up. Homework was reasonable, midterm was easy, and final was hard. Good curve.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
CS138 . 1 Year, 1 Month Ago

It's a theory class so the material is really abstract. I've taken Ananth before for 178 and he always does take-home tests. It's not like he magically makes the content easy to understand but he is clearly very knowledgable and the class is reasonably fair. The first homework was very harshly graded. Provides covid-era recordings of lecture.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
CMPSC138 . 1 Year, 6 Months Ago

Great class, very fair HWs & tests, and class curve at the end. Lectures were great as well, always made sure everyone understood everything before moving on, and genuinely did care about students. I would take another class from him if he taught one. I always came out of lectures happy with what I learned, idk why he has bad reviews.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
CMPSC138 . 1 Year, 6 Months Ago

Nice guy but imo really difficult lectures, I never felt like they made sense. HW is hard but lots of time given, midterm+final were take home bc he's aware the material is rlly hard, but they're still too hard compared to lectures. Class NEEDED MORE OFFICE HOURS. Only thing I really know is how to make DFAs. Everything else? lol. Way too abstract.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
CS138 . 4 Years Ago

Much of what was covered in lecture didn't even begin to capture how difficult the homework would be. He also encouraged students to just write I don't know and would give more credit for writing I don't know in comparison to an actual attempt.

1 helpful 1 unhelpful
See all 12 reviews
CMPSC 170
99 / 100 Enrolled
Operating Systems
Rich Wolski 4.2
T R
09:30 AM - 10:45 AM
39.8% A
CMPSC 176A
147 / 147 Full
Introduction to Computer Communication Networks
Elizabeth Belding 3.8
T R
14:00 PM - 15:15 PM
45.7% A
CMPSC 181
49 / 50 Enrolled
Introduction to Computer Vision
Yuan-Fang Wang 1.8
T R
12:30 PM - 13:45 PM
53.8% A
CMPSC 185
99 / 100 Enrolled
Human-Computer Interaction
Misha Sra 3.0
M W
12:30 PM - 13:45 PM
59.5% A
CMPSC 189B
40 / 40 Full
Senior Computer Systems Project
Malkhi D
T
14:00 PM - 16:50 PM
95.5% A
CMPSC 190DE
1 / 10 Enrolled
Special Topics in Computer Science
T B A
T R
14:00 PM - 15:15 PM
85.0% A