Introduction to Cryptography and the Bitcoin Protocol (2/2)

<!--HTML-->Cryptography is a key element of many Internet protocols – used for ensuring privacy, integrity, and security. Topics to be covered will include symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption (public/private keys), digital signing and cryptographic hashing. These topics will serve as background information for the lecture on an Introduction to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin protocol not only supports an electronic currency, but also has the possibility for being (mis)used in other ways. Topics will include the basic operation of how Bitcoin operates including motivations and also such things as block chaining, bitcoin mining, and how financial transactions operate. A knowledge of the topics covered in the Basic Cryptography lecture will be assumed.