Fiat-Shamir heuristic for the layperson

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I am trying to understand the example given on this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat%E2%80%93Shamir_heuristic

but the explanation says I need to be familiar with both multiplicative groups and Euler's totient theorem to understand it. Well I was familiar with neither, but after some searching I might understand the necessary operations now and I wanted to check my understanding here.

For Euler's totient theorem, if I'm plugging in values for $\varphi$ correctly, I should get results as follows:

  • $\varphi(4) = 2$

  • $\varphi(11) = 10$

And so on.

For multiplicative groups, if I'm understanding this page correctly:

https://cs.nyu.edu/~spencer/algebra07/zntimes.pdf

this symbol $\mathbb{Z}_q^*$ says "take all coprimes of $q$ and multiply them and take the remainder", but I'm unclear on how to proceed.

Is it possible to explain this operation to someone without a background in groups? If not, where should I start?