Workshop: An Introduction to Cryptography with Doc Blackburn

Course Overview

This course introduces the fundamental concepts of cryptography and its role in protecting information in the digital world. Students will learn how cryptography secures communication, ensures data integrity, verifies identities, and enables trust across insecure networks. The course blends history, core principles, modern techniques, and hands-on labs to provide both conceptual knowledge and practical skills.

Topics Covered

• Foundations of Cryptography: What cryptography is, key terms, and historical background.

• Core Concepts: Plaintext vs. ciphertext, algorithms, encryption keys, and brute force attacks.

• Cryptographic Services: Confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and digital signatures.

• Symmetric & Asymmetric Encryption: DES, AES, RSA, ECC, and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

• Hashing & Integrity: MD5, SHA families, and digital signatures.

• Protecting Data: Data in transit (SSL/TLS, IPSec, VPNs, Wi-Fi) and data at rest (BitLocker, FileVault, VeraCrypt, PGP/GPG).

• Key Management: Key length, key vaults, key derivation functions, and best practices.

• Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): Digital certificates, certificate authorities, OCSP, and HTTPS.

• Emerging Topics: Quantum-resistant cryptography, cryptocurrency basics, and blockchain.

• Multi-Factor Authentication: Tokens, authenticator apps, and FIDO devices.

Labs & Hands-On Exercises

• Hashing with WinMD5 and Linux tools

• Encrypting with AES in Windows and Linux

• Using VeraCrypt for disk encryption

• Practicing PBKDF2 for key derivation

• Analyzing digital certificates

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will:

• Understand the purpose and principles of cryptography.

• Identify and explain the major types of cryptographic algorithms.

• Apply hashing and encryption to secure data in labs.

• Explain how PKI builds trust and how certificates validate identity.

• Recognize the challenges of key management and emerging threats like quantum computing.

• Gain practical skills in using cryptographic tools to protect information.