Required Prerequisites: Four years of High School Mathematics
Recommended Prerequisites:

Building upon the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court has created and protected a concept of privacy in the physical world. Yet in Cyberspace (the world of interconnected computers) information about you and your loved ones is gathered, used, bought, and sold without your knowledge or permission. How is this possible? Why is undetected cyber-snooping relatively easy? What can you do to improve your information privacy? Who and what are you trusting whenever you communicate or transact business over the Internet?

Some seminar time will be devoted to exploring the concept and desirability of information privacy. A larger portion of the seminar will be devoted to the topics needed to understand the nature of and risks to information in cyberspace: the design of digital computers, operating systems and high-level languages, universal machines and computability, computer networks, software and programming, encryption, decryption, and cryptographic attacks.

We will work through these topics in the context of the biography "Alan Turing: The Enigma" by Andrew Hodges and the novel "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson.