BA, Oberlin College, 2018, Mathematics

At its core, cryptography relies on problems that are simple to construct but difficult to solve unless certain information (the “key”) is known. Many of these problems come from number theory and group theory. One method of obtaining groups from which to build cryptosystems is to define algebraic curves over finite fields and then derive a group structure from the set of points on those curves. This thesis serves as an exposition of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), preceded by a discussion of some basic cryptographic concepts and followed by a glance into one generalization of ECC: cryptosystems based on hyperelliptic curves.

Committee: Benjamin Linowitz (Advisor) Subjects: Computer Science; Mathematics