SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES

CAMS/SCMA Short Course on

CRYPTOGRAPHY and DATA SECURITY

May 29, 1997

Presenters:
Professor Ronald C. Mullin of ICR Data Encryption Group, and co-founder of Certicom Ltd.,
and
Bruno Di Stefano, P. Eng., President of Nuptek Systems Ltd., Chairman of IEEE. Toronto Section.

Goals of the Course:

With the arrival of the Information Age, cryptography has grown from an exotic instrument of the military and diplomatic corps to an essential tool for a wide segment of industry and commerce. It can be used to protect all forms of electronic communications such as Fax, e-mail, cellular phones, and home banking systems.

Cryptography can replace the sealed envelope of a paper-oriented system and ensure privacy on electronic media. More important is its ability to prevent forgery of electronic documents, and to supply mutual authentication of senders and recipients of these documents. Without such tools wide-scale electronic commerce, using vehicles such as the Internet, would be impossible.

This Short Course is intended for students and working professionals alike; in fact for anyone interested in learning about the fascinating and rapidly expanding field of security in data communications and its underlying mathematics. The only prerequisite for this course is a knowledge of basic undergraduate-level mathematics.

This Short Course is offered immediately preceding the CAMS/SCMA 18th Annual Meeting, May 30 to June 1, 1997 in Toronto, Ontario.

Co-Hosts:
University of Guelph, The University of Western Ontario and The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences.

Co-Organizers:
A.T. Lawniczak (Guelph), W.F. Langford (Fields, Guelph), P.J. Sullivan (Western Ontario).