Cryptography: Theory and Practice, Third Edition (Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications)

If you are new to the math behind cryptography but want to tackle it, the author covers all of the required background to understand the real mathematics here. Cryptography includes extensive exercises with each chapter and makes an ideal introduction for any math-literate person willing to get acquainted with this material.

Product Description
THE LEGACY… First introduced in 1995, Cryptography: Theory and Practice garnered enormous praise and popularity, and soon became the standard textbook for cryptography courses around the world. The second edition was equally embraced, and enjoys status as a perennial bestseller. Now in its third edition, this authoritative text continues to provide a solid foundation for future breakthroughs in cryptography. WHY A THIRD EDITION? The art and science of cryptography has been evolving for thousands of years. Now, with unprecedented amounts of information circling the globe, we must be prepared to face new threats and employ new encryption schemes on an ongoing basis. This edition updates relevant chapters with the latest advances and includes seven additional chapters covering: Pseudorandom bit generation in cryptography Entity authentication, including schemes built from primitives and special purpose "zero-knowledge" schemes Key establishment including key distribution and protocols for key agreement, both with a greater emphasis on security models and proofs Public key infrastructure, including identity-based cryptography Secret sharing schemes Multicast security, including broadcast encryption and copyright protection THE RESULT… Providing mathematical background in a "just-in-time" fashion, informal descriptions of cryptosystems along with more precise pseudocode, and a host of numerical examples and exercises, Cryptography: Theory and Practice, Third Edition offers comprehensive, in-depth treatment of the methods and protocols that are vital to safeguarding the mind-boggling amount of information circulating around the world.

Professor Stinson wisely concentrates on theory, with a few nods to practice like explaining efficient modular exponentiation.

The theoretical material starts with the indispensable foundation of information theory and jumps straight into the operation of commercially important algorithms and their weaknesses. These are short but well done. For example Stinson has the best presentation of differential cryptanalysis that I've seen.

The breadth is good, covering most of the important magic that you can work with crypto: secret sharing, key exchange, zero knowledge proofs, etc.

Oddly, there doesn't seem to be a discussion of the blinding techniques used in Chaum's digital cash. Maybe that's because they're not yet a major part of the landscape, but then why spend space on the McEliece system?

A useful fraction of the book is accessible if you just have high school math, all of it with college math.

This would be a fine introduction to crypto.


Very good book! I have really enjoyed it!   May 2, 2003
Paolo (Italy)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

The philosophy underlying the previous edition stays the same. The presentation of concepts is rigorous but neither difficult nor trivial, suitable for readers with basic notions of linear algebra. Moreover, new material has been added.

Chapter 3, which deals with block ciphers and linear and differential cryptoanalysis, is very well-written. This is the best presentation of such a subject in few pages I have seen until now.

Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 have been significantly updated and expanded with concepts and techniques that are fundamental in order to understand current researches and state of knowledge in Cryptography (e.g., random oracle model, semantic security, new attacks against public key cryptosystems, an in-depth introduction to elliptic curve ...).

Compared to the previous edition, more emphasys has been given in some parts to security proofs (e.g, chapter 4), and several new exercises have been proposed at the end of each chapter.

Other readers have pointed out that there are some typos (the author has made available an errata list on his home page) but I think that the value of the book is not reduced in any way.

In my opinion it is a great book for people who want to be introduced to problems, ideas, and techniques used in Cryptography.


Fantastic Book on Cryptography   March 20, 2004
Adam L. Young (Sterling, VA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book is well suited for software developers, students, and research scientists alike. The first edition has proven to be an invaluable source of information on cryptology. The second edition covers a subset of the material from the first edition. However, the text has been revised, expanded, and new material has been added that covers more recent results in the field. A forthcomming companion book has been promised that will cover the remaining material (e.g., zero-knowledge proof systems). Readers that are interested in combinatorics should also consider picking up a copy of "Combinatorial Algorithms: Generation, Enumeration, and Search" by Stinson and Kreher.