Good primers on Cryptography

Question

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend good primers on Cryptography and Crypto theory for someone with little or no prior experience in the area. I'll be honest and say it's something I've always found fascinating but having recently read Cryptonomicon I had my interest resparked in the whole field.

I just did some searching on here and found this question which is close to what I'm after but is a bit more on the "applied" side of things in terms of hacking etc whereas I'm kind of looking for something that covers the basics and the history but on the theoretical side.

Answer 1

I really enjoyed The Code Book by Simon Singh.

http://books.google.com/books?id=iFBrAAAACAAJ&dq=Simon+Singh&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result

It covers cryptography all the way from simple letter replacement up to current quantum cryptography theory.

Answer 2

Applied Cryptography from Bruce Schneier is a good start.

Answer 3

Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorithms-Source/dp/0471117099/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221591782&sr=8-1

Bruce Schneier. Definitely the expert.

Answer 4

You might want to pick up a book or two on abstract algebra. Ring and group theory play very large roles in cryptography. I can't recommend a specific title because my survey of algebra class was taught from my professor's notes. But the book I used in my applied algebra class, which includes discussions on such things as the RSA algorithm, is Applications of Abstract Algebra with Maple and MATLAB. It requires knowledge of abstract algebra, but gives overviews of the concepts that relate to the topics being discussed.

Answer 5

As a podcast: SecurityNow (http://twit.tv/sn or http://grc.com/securitynow) had some very nice introductions a while ago (episodes 30-37). No stuff too hard (e.g. everything audio), but plain explanations, easily understandable

Answer 6

Practical Cryptography, by Ferguson and Schneier.

This book is about cryptography as it is used in real-world systems, about cryptography as an engineering discipline rather than cryptography as a mathematical science.

Building real-world cryptographic systems is vastly different from the abstract world of most books on cryptography, which discuss a pure mathematical ideal that magically solves your security problems. Designers and implementors live in a very different world, where nothing is perfect and where experience shows that most cryptographic systems are broken due to problems that have nothing to do with mathematics. This book is about how to apply the cryptographic functions in a real-world setting in such a way that you actually get a secure system.

This is the book we wish we'd had more than a decade ago when we started our cryptographic careers. It collects our combined experiences on how to design cryptographic systems the right way. In some ways, this book is a sequel to Bruce's first book Applied Cryptography, but it focuses on very practical problems and on how to build a secure system rather than just design a cryptographic protocol.

Answer 7

Second vote for the code book by Simon Singh. It has a good history of codes and ciphers that's fascinating reading, and goes all the way up to modern prime factoring methods. I enjoyed it, and you don't need a strong mathematical background to get a lot out of it.

Answer 8

I really enjoyed reading Codes, Ciphers and Other Cryptic and Clandestine Communication: 400 Ways to Send Secret Messages from Hieroglyphs to the Internet by Fred Wrixon.

The first 100 pages or so is a history of codes and ciphers, and the rest is a catalog of all sorts of ciphers in practice. From a practical perspective it's pretty dated, but it was an enjoyable way to get my feet wet.

Answer 9

Applied Cryptography is the best IMO... Singh's book is also a good one.

Answer 10

I would start with Practical Cryptography by Ferguson and Schneier rather than Applied Cryptography. It will give you a very solid foundation on cryptography and cover the subjects you absolutely need to know.

Answer 11

Applied Cryptography is a good book, but the author has backed down from some of his positions in the work. He's found that information security is as much a human problem as a technical one.

Answer 12

If you're looking for a big homework assignment for yourself, there's also Bruce Schneier's self-study course in block cipher cryptanalysis circa 2000.

Answer 13

If you're interested more in public key cryptography, http://www.amazon.com/Algebraic-Methods-Cryptography-Contemporary-Mathematics/dp/0821840371 is worth checking out!