Hiding Data - Selected Topics: Rudolf Ahlswede’s Lectures on Information Theory 3

This is the third of several volumes serving as the collected documentation of Rudolf Ahlswede’s lectures on information theory. Each volume includes comments from an invited well-known expert. In the supplement to the present volume, Rüdiger Reischuk contributes his insights.

Classical information processing concerns the main tasks of gaining knowledge and the storage, transmission and hiding of data. The first task is the prime goal of Statistics. For transmission and hiding data, Shannon developed an impressive mathematical theory called Information Theory, which he based on probabilistic models. The theory largely involves the concept of codes with small error probabilities in spite of noise in the transmission, which is modeled by channels. The lectures presentedin this work are suitable for graduate students in Mathematics, and also for those working in Theoretical Computer Science, Physics, and Electrical Engineering with a background in basic Mathematics. The lectures can be used as the basis for courses or to supplement courses in many ways. Ph.D. students will also find research problems, often with conjectures, that offer potential subjects for a thesis. More advanced researchers may find questions which form the basis of entire research programs.