Algebraic curves and cryptography

It is by now a well-known paradigm that public-key cryptosystems can be built using finite Abelian groups and that algebraic geometry provides a supply of such groups through Abelian varieties over finite fields. Of special interest are the Abelian varieties that are Jacobians of algebraic curves. All of the articles in this volume are centered on the theme of point counting and explicit arithmetic on the Jacobians of curves over finite fields. The topics covered include Schoof's \ell-adic point counting algorithm, the p-adic algorithms of Kedlaya and Denef-Vercauteren, explicit arithmetic on