Understanding cryptography
by Christof Paar · first published 2010
54% recommend38% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
Approachable, practical textbook that pairs clear explanations with math notation and companion lectures on YouTube. It serves as a solid starting point for students and working practitioners.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…Thomas Cormen An Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata by Peter Linz Probability and Statistics by by Morris H. DeGroot Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles by William Stallings Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar Database Systems: Fundamentals of Design, Implementations and Management by by Peter Rob Principles of Concurrent and Distributed Programming: Algorithms and Models by M. Ben-Ari Introduction…
on “Ask HN: What is a must read for a developer without a computer science degree?” ↗Introduction to Cryptography, by Christof Paar. His book ' Understanding Cryptography: A Textbook for Students and Practitioners' also provides great insight to the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aHkqB2-46k
on “Ask HN: What's your favorite online course?” ↗Accompanying book + site https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Cryptography-Textbook-S... http://www.crypto-textbook.com/
on “Introduction to Cryptography – Christof Paar” ↗1) Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar et al. I learnt cryptography from the 1st edition. Its very practical and highly recommended - https://www.cryptography-textbook.com/ 2) Cryptography: Theory and Practice by Douglas…
on “Why are neural networks and cryptographic ciphers so similar?” ↗Understanding cryptography is good https://www.amazon.com/dp/3642041000
on “Ask HN: Best book on modern cryptography?” ↗If you haven’t seen it already, check out “Understanding Cryptography: A Textbook for Students and Practitioners”. Probably one of the best and approachable books on cryptography. Plus all the lectures are on YouTube so you can read a chapter and then watch the lecture.…
on “Learn How to Break AES” ↗…lectures [4] and a course webpage [5]. In case any further encouragement is needed, according to a blog posting "Matasano Crypto Challenges, Set 5" [6]: "This set was surprisingly easy, actually. The book Understanding Cryptography by Paar & Pelzl is an excellent intro to the basic maths needed for crypto — namely, the group theory and number theory necessary for RSA and Diffie-Hellman." Now that I am at it, here are some HN links…
on “MIT 6.875 – Cryptography and Cryptanalysis [video]” ↗…https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/56-bit_encryption That is interesting that the Wikipedia page you linked claims the contrary and makes me suspect tampering. Because this story has been told over and over again, even in textbooks. See Springer's Understanding Cryptography chapter on DES for instance. EDIT: In fact, the Wikipedia page you linked states DES, as stated above, is insecure. This is mainly due to the 56-bit key size being too small. So where is this nonsense…
on “Attorney General Barr and Encryption” ↗…Cheong, van Kerveld, and Overmars, "Computational Geometry" Lee and Hubbard, "Data Structures and Algorithms with Python" Borthwick, "Introduction to Partial Differential Equations" Paar and Pelzl, "Understanding Cryptography" Haubold an Borsch-Haubold, "Bioinformatics for Evolutionary Biologists" [1] https://xlinux.nist.gov/dads/HTML/bigOnotation.html
on “Learn Big-O and stop hacking your way through algorithms” ↗I am looking to take an Intro to Cryptography course and picked up a copy of the textbook, titled "Understanding Cryptography" by Paar/Pelzl.[1] I've seen a lot of debate on cryptography books on HN and am wondering what the opinion is about this textbook before I crack it open and start studying. [1] http://www.springer.com/computer/security+and+cryptology/book/978-3-642-04100-6
on “Ask HN: Thoughts on Understanding Cryptography by Paar/Pelzl?” ↗Spring had made "Understanding Cryptography" available for free https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-04101-3
on “Ask HN: What scientific phenomenon do you wish someone would explain better?” ↗…Geometry Cryptography Made Simple Eye Tracking Methodology The Data Science Design Manual An Introduction to Machine Learning Guide to Discrete Mathematics Modelling Computing Systems Understanding Cryptography Concise Guide to Software Engineering Fundamentals of Multimedia The Python Workbook Recommender Systems Python Programming Fundamentals Object-Oriented Analysis, Design and Implementation…
on “Springer Nature offer free access to 500 essential textbooks” ↗…"Serious Cryptography" by Jean-Philippe Aumasson - from the No Starch Press stable. The exposition is quite good, and finds a decent balance between making it approachable and getting the details right. - "Understanding Cryptography" by Paar and Pelzl - decent coverage of fundamental primitives (block/stream ciphers, public key encryption, hashes, signatures etc) but feels a bit outdated. For ex. there is a whole chapter on DES.
on “Ask HN: Best book on modern cryptography?” ↗