RE: (A little OT) Introduction to cryptography
Hi, I'd just like to point out that every time I think of the book
Applied Cryptography I always think of swarms of bacteria and weird
conspiracies :)
-----Original Message-----
From: Damian M Gryski [mailto:dmg@dmgware.dhs.org] On Behalf Of Damian M
Gryski
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 1:58 AM
To: debian-security@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: (A little OT) Introduction to cryptography
On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, Winfried M. Thalmeier wrote:
> > Hi, I have been studying crypto systems for awhile now and it seems
> > that the best resource on the subject bar none is APPLIED
> > CRYPTOGRAPHY written by Bruce Schneier 2nd Edition has copious code
> > examples and execellent easy to understand explaination of
> > practically all practical crypto algorithms out there. You may have
> > heard of one of the authors algorithms - blowfish... Failing that
> > try looking at the gnu privacy guard. It is an awesome public key
> > algorithm.
>
> Here are some sample-Chapters of the english version:
> http://cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/
Actually, this is the entire English version of "Handbook of Applied
Cryptography", by Menezes, Vanstone and van Oorschot. It's a serious
crypto book, and covers the mathematics of crypto far better than
Schneier does. (In fact, the first edition of Applied Crypto had
not only horrible math, but incorrect math. The second edition fixed
this by having people who knew what they were doing rewrite the
chapters.)
I recommend reading Applied Crypto to get the basic ideas, but then
looking up the relavent sections in the Handbook.
Another good crypto book is Stinson's "Cryptography: Theory and
Practice", which again delves into the mathematics more.
I'm taking a crypto course from Menezes this term. One of the
major points he made was that "Bacon-Icecream is bad". More
specifically, bacon is good, and ice cream is good. But together,
the combination is questionable. If you're doing any sort of crypto
work, you need to understand the crypto part so you don't just
sprinkle magic-crypto-fairy-dust on your project and hope it works.
It probably won't.
Damian
--
Damian Gryski ==> dgryski@uwaterloo.ca | Linux, the choice of a GNU
generation
512 pt Hacker Test score = 37% | 500 pt Nerd Test score = 56%
geek / linux zealot / coder / juggler
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-security-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
listmaster@lists.debian.org
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-security-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: