Volume III of the Definitive Work

This book takes a fairly rigorous mathematical approach to cryptography. It is intended for upper level undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics, computer science and engineering. I suspect only the quite mathematically inclined computer science and engineering students will find this book helpful. This is not a Boy Scout how to do secret messages book, but a book that will give the professional the data needed to implement cryptographic software, and the mathematician hints on both code breaking and creating.

This is the third edition of this book. With the second edition, the author got rid of several several subjects that were not right at the core of cryptography, with the intend of doing a second volume. Instead, the art and scienct of cryptography has changed so fast during the past few years that a two volume approach isn't practical. Instead, he has produced this third edition that picks back up many of the subjects from the first edition. All of the material in this edition has been extensively re-written to incorporate the latest theories and practices.

In recent years the use of cryptography has increased by several orders of magnitude. Every time we buy something with a credit card, use on line banking, send a password to access e-mail, we use cryptography. With this growth, the interest at software companies, universities, and other places has grown accordingly and this text has become the standard by which others are compared.

Highly recommended for the serious student.

Other Reviews

• A Cryptography Teaching Textbook
• Good book after Schneier's Non-Mathematical Treatment
• Volume III of the Definitive Work
• Could be a great book .... but it falls short