PhD in CS -- Cryptography interview

[nikolas.asteri]

Hey all and good luck with your applications.

Does anybody here know about the questions during an interview from cryptography groups?
Are they technical and specific on the professor's work? Or more general about basic things (eg What is RSA? How we define addition on an elliptic curve? etc)? Or just a friendly chat about what you already know?

Thanks in advance. 

[pascal_barbots_wager]

I haven't had one of these, but according to others who have most CS PhD interviews are more along the lines of informal discussions of research interests than quizzes on what knowledge you already have. They're not like job interviews or oral exams. That said, it's good to be able to demonstrate that you have some understanding of the field. So knowing definitions is unlikely to matter, but being able to say a little something about e.g. different approaches to a certain problem or questions you have about a certain method is good.

[nikolas.asteri]

thank you