Cryptography And Network Security

Too many engineers consider cryptography to be a sort of magic security dust that they can sprinkle over their hardware or software, and which will imbue those products with the mythical property of “security.” Security is only as strong as the weakest link, and the mathematics of cryptography is almost never the weakest link. The fundamentals of cryptography are important, but far more important are, how those fundamentals are implemented and used. You can argue whether the stake should be a mile or a mile-and-a-half high, but the attacker is simply going to walk around the stake. Security is a broad stockade: it’s the things around the cryptography that make the cryptography effective. This book is intended for Professional cryptographers, presenting the techniques and algorithms of greatest interest to the current practitioner, along with the supporting motivation and background material. It also provides a comprehensive source from which to learn cryptography, serving both students and instructors. Throughout each chapter, we emphasize the relationship between various aspects of cryptography. We believe this style of presentation allows a better understanding of how algorithms actually work. Each chapter was written to provide a self-contained treatment of one major topic. Collectively, however, the chapters have been designed and carefully integrated to be entirely complementary with respect to definitions, terminology, and notation. Furthermore, there is essentially no duplication of material across chapters; instead, appropriate cross-chapter references are provided where relevant.