Stream of consciousness post here. For your first bullet, people should be aware of mt_rand()'s superiority to rand(). For your fourth bullet, people should be

Stream of consciousness post here. For your first bullet, people should be aware of mt_rand()'s superiority to rand(). For your fourth bullet, people should be aware of hmac. (Am suggesting that awareness of these should be a necessity, though not sufficient for some purposes.) Edit: Just read your powerpoint - it's a wonderful overview, with brief code samples. People getting started with this broad topic should definitely give it a read. And now I'm sad I missed your live talk a few weeks ago.