Blogs and Books on Encryption and Security

Question

Could any of you experienced programmers / ethical hackers out there recommend some blogs or books on security/encryption? The only blogs I look at now are

.Net Security Blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnfa/archive/2009/03/17/authenticated-symmetric-encryption-in-net.aspx)

Laptop Security Blog (http://blog.absolute.com/cybercrimes-more-sophisticated-but-so-too-are-countermeasures/)

Schneier On Security (http://www.schneier.com/index.html)

I am especially interested in the mathematical theory behind the security/encryption, not just how to use it. Thanks in advance for all of your help.

(Update: Thanks everyone for the thoughtful answers! I wish I could choose all of them as the 'selected answer')

Answer 1

If you enjoy Schneier you'll probably enjoy his encryption books, in addition to the relevant material on his website

In particular Practical Cryptography (2003) and Applied Cryptography (1996)

If you are an ACM Professional Member you currently have free access to Modern Cryptanalysis: Techniques for Advanced Code Breaking by Christopher Swenson in the Books24x7 selection (from MyACM).

Answer 2

Some books I can recommend:

• The Codebreakers by David Kahn
• The Code Book by Simon Singh
• Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier
• The Handbook of Applied Cryptography

I also recommend the Security Now podcast with Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson. Here's a particularly good sequence of episodes on cryptography:

• Episode 30: Crypto Issues
• Episode 31: Crypto 102
• Episode 33: Symmetric Block Ciphers
• Episode 34: Public Key Cryptography
• Episode 35: Cryptographic Hashes
• Episode 37: Primes and Certificates

Answer 3

For encryption I highly recommend the Handbook of Applied Cryptography, which you can either buy as a book or download all of the chapters for free at the linked address. In addition the University of Washington released the full semesters worth of lectures from their Practical Aspects of Modern Cryptography class as a podcast (MP3 format), it should still be available on iTunes or elsewhere.

Other great sources of security information are:

• OWASP Podcast
• Silver Bullet Podcast
• Insecure Magazine
• Matasano Chargen
• Tales from the Crypto
• The New School of Information Security
• www.leastprivilege.com