| Information | Review |
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Dana Dachman-Soled
CMSC456 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/02/2026 |
I may daresay Dr. Dachman-Soled might be one of the better, if not best, crypto professors, especially if you're interested in moving forward with cryptography in any aspect. Her expertise lies very solidly in the domain of the subject, and she emphasizes a lot of the theoretical games that any good cryptographer should be considering when creating a cryptographic algorithm, such as CPA or MacForge. The importance of this can't be understated; from a practical standpoint, it's true that cryptographic algorithms tend to stay pretty constant thanks to NIST standards and cryptographic libraries, but if you're interested in crypto research, these are ideas that are foundational to the subject that even published crypto papers get wrong. She's also one of the few crypto profs that goes over post-quantum crypto, which we're slowly (very, very, very slowly) migrating towards, meaning that if you're interested at all in the future of crypto algorithms, you should absolutely take 456 with her. I enjoyed the subject immensely. The B I got was mostly thanks to me skill-issuing the statistics (I hate statistics) which is a large part of the analysis done on cryptography, especially in regards to information theory. (I also hate linear algebra, which is what a lot of PQC is.) (I'm not very good at math.) That being said, the class is hard as all hell and I don't recommend it with her if you're looking for something easy. I also wish that she covered more of the applications of the crypto algorithms. It's a bit of a shame that we didn't even go over digital signatures even though they're one of the more common applications of asymmetric crypto. If there was a bit more emphasis on real-world cryptosystems, like multi-party computation systems, encrypted messaging channels, or even more discussion on PKI, that would easily elevate this class from a 4 to a 5. On a side note, loved the website. Lots of bells and whistles. |
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Dana Dachman-Soled
CMSC456 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/23/2025 |
This course had the potential to be much more engaging, but I found the content covered to be overly theoretical and not particularly useful in a practical context. While theory certainly has its place, the class focused almost exclusively on it, which made it difficult to stay engaged, especially when I heard that Professor Wiseley Wong’s section explored more hands-on, practical topics. There were daily in-class quizzes and homework assignments roughly every 2–3 weeks. I’ll admit, the frequent quizzes encouraged consistent review, which did help me stay somewhat on track with the material. However, the lectures themselves were quite dry and didn’t connect well to the homework assignments. To make matters worse, only 3 of the 6 homework assignments were graded by the end of the semester, which was frustrating. In terms of performance metrics, the average final grade was around an 83. The first midterm average was a 76 (including extra credit), while the second midterm average dropped significantly to a 57. I think these averages reflect the general difficulty students had in understanding the course material. Overall, I’d recommend taking this class with a different professor if you’re looking for more practical applications. If you enjoy theoretical computer science and abstract concepts, Professor Dana might be a better fit for you. |
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Dana Dachman-Soled
CMSC456 Anonymous 06/21/2022 |
She is nice and a clear lecturer. She teaches from slides which generally have everything you need to know and does examples on the projector. The exams weren't trivial but were often similar to examples which were heavily emphasized in class. |
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Dana Dachman-Soled
MATH456 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/16/2022 |
Dr. Dana was okay. She explained things well and her office hours were a big help, but her slides weren't all that clear, and her exams were pretty hard. She does offer extra credit assignments though, so you can use that to pick up your grade. |