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. |
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23 of 24 found the following review helpful:
 Could be a great book .... but it falls shortMay 01, 2004
As other people have pointed out, this is not a mathematics book, and it is not an algorithm (recipies) book. It could be a great book for people that are interested in learning these tools to actually use them, either in a research or product development context (something besides homework). Unfortunately, the number of typos, in key mathematical expressions AND PORTIONS OF THE EXPLANATIONS is staggering. Go to the author's web page and you will find that some chapters, like 4 for example, average more than one typo per page (and some of these 'typos' are full sentences, or math expressions that do not look like anything that is actually printed on the page). If you do not have that errata sheet handy, you will waste a lot of time trying to understand the text, or trying to solve the exercises. If you are trying to learn from this book, without attending a class and without the errata, you will simply give up. It is a real shame because it has all the makings of a great book.
14 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Volume III of the Definitive WorkApr 17, 2005
By John Matlock
"Gunny"
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.
13 of 14 found the following review helpful:
It packs a lot in a small spaceJun 04, 2001
By Beryllium Sphere (r) L.L.C.
A book that tries to cover the theory and practice of cryptography in only four hundred pages has to make a lot of ruthless choices.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.
12 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 Too many errorsJan 09, 2003
The large number of errors and typographical mistakes in this book severly reduce its value as a reference or a textbook. A current errata list is available on the author's web site. In a book as math-centric as this one, typographical mistakes in key formulas and examples is inexcusable. For what this book sells for, especially considering how short it is at less than 400 pages, they should have done a much better job proofreading and checking the excercises than they did before it hit the presses. Unless you need this as a text book, wait for the third edition or find another reference. This one isn't worth the money.
22 of 28 found the following review helpful:
Extraordinary Book on CryptographySep 24, 1998
Very good book if you are interested in criptography and secret maths. Not many publication on this topic are written as clear as this. Other like Neal Koblitz's Book on criptography is a lot harder for people on lower level of maths knowledge. I recomed it to those who want to learn something or for those who want to refresh their memory .
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