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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Classical Cryptosystems and Core Concepts by University of Colorado System

4.5
stars
398 ratings

About the Course

Welcome to Introduction to Applied Cryptography. Cryptography is an essential component of cybersecurity. The need to protect sensitive information and ensure the integrity of industrial control processes has placed a premium on cybersecurity skills in today’s information technology market. Demand for cybersecurity jobs is expected to rise 6 million globally by 2019, with a projected shortfall of 1.5 million, according to Symantec, the world’s largest security software vendor. According to Forbes, the cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $75 billion in 2015 to $170 billion by 2020. In this specialization, you will learn basic security issues in computer communications, classical cryptographic algorithms, symmetric-key cryptography, public-key cryptography, authentication, and digital signatures. These topics should prove especially useful to you if you are new to cybersecurity Course 1, Classical Cryptosystems, introduces you to basic concepts and terminology related to cryptography and cryptanalysis. It is recommended that you have a basic knowledge of computer science and basic math skills such as algebra and probability....

Top reviews

AE

Aug 12, 2020

Interesting course on an Interesting topic taken in a pleasant, enjoyable, and simple manner.

Never did I feel bored or out of my depth even though I am a stranger to the topic.

MR

Nov 6, 2017

The lectures were educational, and interesting without speaking down to you. I learned a lot without being overwhelmed

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76 - 85 of 85 Reviews for Classical Cryptosystems and Core Concepts

By PANDEY H M

Jun 11, 2020

The Course was hard to grasp, Sometimes felt certain things were unclear like while explaining the theory that has numbers please add it on the screen. But It was one of the most educational and helpful courses on cryptography.

By Prakash Y

Oct 6, 2020

Take this course at your own risk!! Although course rated beginner, topics taught are not meant for beginners. You should already have previous knowledge in cryptography to successfully grasp knowledge given in this course.

By Wint M N

Aug 30, 2020

This course makes me know more about the history of cryptography and some other attacks precisely.

By Kunle O

Apr 11, 2022

The lectures were all abstract. There was rarely examples used to visually show what concepts meant. He basically just talked about crptography for 3 hours. For example, the whole third week is about Hash Functions, but he only talked about it as an idea. Go through just ONE crypthographic hash function so that people understand what it is. I've taken Data Structure and Algorithms, which is why I already know what they are, but it was still extremely hard to follow because he was talking about cryptographic hash functions and not hash functions for hash tables. The difference between preimage and second preimage was probably the only time he used any sort of example, but even that wasn't fully mapped back to cryptography. I'm going to try the second course in the specialization, but if it was anything like this, I won't continue.

By Jose J O

Jul 17, 2020

Personally, I found this course to be pretty anti-didactic. First, it is listed as a beginner course, but some of the probability concepts aren't explained directly in the course. Another observation is that almost all of the aditional readings provided are from Wikipedia - I get that many courses need to have a self-taught part for the student to better comprehend the concepts or get a deeper understanding, but had I wanted to read only Wikipedia articles I could've done that without enrolling to this course. Lastly, I think it lacks exercises to put the knowledge into practice. However, it did gave a quick review of many basic concepts and serves as an introduction to the field.

By Jing W

Aug 23, 2019

Nice and easy undergraduate course, but not useful for students seeking for a big picture of state-of-the-art cryptography. Content of this course is way too old.

Encryption/decryption of English characters are dinosaur technologies for telegraph, which itself has disappeared in modern communications.

Too many historical tales, too few modern technologies, and almost no technical details or math.

BTW, there are quite a few mistakes in slides, and the instructors don't response questions on discussion forums.

I don't believe students should start from the ancient age to learn modern cryptography, not very useful course in general.

By Juan I R

Sep 27, 2020

The videos are way too long with too much info cramped up and there is no formative evaluation after each one. So when you get to the summative evaluation after like five 15min videos with too much info you basically dont remember half of it, so you end up going back to do all over again. They also dont provide any real material other that wikipedia links, a book with the topics taught would be way better, if I wanted to go to wikipedia I wouldnt be here. I like the subject but this course is not well made compared to others

By Navajith R R

Sep 3, 2020

not a lot of examples. teaching was way to boring.

By Frederic P

Aug 7, 2023

The WORST introductory class I ever saw, ever ... Cryptanalysis in week 2 ??? Are you kidding ??? Using public key without introducing it ??? Who cares today about Vigeneres ???This class is a pony show, a show off of knowledge, certainly mastered but presented in lightning speed on fundamental concepts ... Awful ... The math part is also weak and muddy. It's an example of what not to do when introducing people to cryptography. Such introduction should be for the whole spectrum of skills needed in IT which is by far NOT cryptanalysis but just understanding what is going on and what the applications using crypto are doing when operating a PKI, issuing certs, authenticating using public key cryptography etc... We have way too many people in IT saying "signing with a certificate". This is what needs be solved. And future cryptanalysts are likely less than 1% of that crowd. Unbelievable ....

By XiaohuiHu

Nov 3, 2019

I think this is the worst course in Coursera which I have taken. The lecture is very bad , only see the teacher saying from begining to the end, without prepare any animation and slides. I can not remember so much usefull knowledge about the Cryptosystem in the course, I should self learning a lot of things from the link after each course. The professor did not give me any more value but only some link from wikipedia.