4 ms·

That math looks indecipherable. Recommended prerequisites? I'm mostly self taught with minimal academic background

chongli 6y ago
Prerequisites are pretty heavy. This is a graduate course aimed at students who have presumably completed a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. At a minimum, you’re going to need an undergrad-level understanding of abstract algebra, number theory, probability, and mathematical logic. What math courses did you take in high school?
ColinWright 6y ago
If you're serious, pick something you don't understand and send me an email. I'll want to know: * What you don't understand; * What you've looked up; * What your thoughts are about it. It depends on what you're asking, and there's a good chance I won't actually be able to help, but I might be able to suggest some self-study to get you started on specific issues.
- 0xff00ffee 6y ago
  For me the weird parts jump out in the very first definitions. I'm not used to thinking of M, C, and K as "all possible messages, ciphertexts, and keys". It never occurred to me to work from those assumptions because that's a crazy huge space in my mind. Plus the set notation threw me a little, e.g.: the cardinality of the set of all ciphertexts for key k in K is ... a number Nc. oookkaaayy.... pause ... ...60 minutes later .... OOOHHH got it!!! ... Same goes for the additive theorem, where suddenly the bit strings M and C become numbers that are added with k mod n --> First it's a message and now ... SHAZAM ... its big integer! I know as an embedded analyst that RSA and ECC crypto spends a lot of time in bigint routines, but it is becoming clear WHY that is the case. I realize this is all 101 stuff for people who know crypto, but I really want to learn it for real-reals, so I'm creeping through this book a little bit every day until my brain shuts down. It took me 30 minutes to convince myself of Example 2.6 wasn't perfect crypto: I know intuitively why, but applying the definition mathematically made me feel all of the rust in my brain from 30 years out of college. I"m sure I'll hit more confusing set theory math, fortunately I have the internet. Such a fun book!
thr0w__4w4y 6y ago
Yes there is some math experience assumed. I know your question was about recommended pre-requisites, not alternatives/supplements to this book, but let me just provide you with a few alternates that are a bit easier to step into. 1) Christof Paar's book, mentioned already by EFruit. It's currently available as a free download, but that will close up soon, so go download it now. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-04101-3 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-04101-3 I bought the hardcopy ~8 years ago and still refer to it. (Note: also as mentioned, Prof. Paar has something like 20 one-hour lectures -- in English -- on Youtube.) 2) Jean-Philippe Aumasson's excellent book (2018) "Serious Cryptography". Very practical, very readable. JPA is the author of the Blake cryptographic hash functions. 3) David Wong's upcoming book "Real World Cryptography" (Manning, 2020). I've read parts of it via Manning's early access program, the book isn't released yet, but good stuff. David blogs regularly too. That should give you enough to chew on for a while!

Prerequisites are pretty heavy. This is a graduate course aimed at students who have presumably completed a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. At a minimum, you’re going to need an undergrad-level understanding of abstract algebra, number theory, probability, and mathematical logic. What math courses did you take in high school?

ColinWright 6y ago

If you're serious, pick something you don't understand and send me an email. I'll want to know: * What you don't understand; * What you've looked up; * What your thoughts are about it. It depends on what you're asking, and there's a good chance I won't actually be able to help, but I might be able to suggest some self-study to get you started on specific issues.

0xff00ffee 6y ago
For me the weird parts jump out in the very first definitions. I'm not used to thinking of M, C, and K as "all possible messages, ciphertexts, and keys". It never occurred to me to work from those assumptions because that's a crazy huge space in my mind. Plus the set notation threw me a little, e.g.: the cardinality of the set of all ciphertexts for key k in K is ... a number Nc. oookkaaayy.... pause ... ...60 minutes later .... OOOHHH got it!!! ... Same goes for the additive theorem, where suddenly the bit strings M and C become numbers that are added with k mod n --> First it's a message and now ... SHAZAM ... its big integer! I know as an embedded analyst that RSA and ECC crypto spends a lot of time in bigint routines, but it is becoming clear WHY that is the case. I realize this is all 101 stuff for people who know crypto, but I really want to learn it for real-reals, so I'm creeping through this book a little bit every day until my brain shuts down. It took me 30 minutes to convince myself of Example 2.6 wasn't perfect crypto: I know intuitively why, but applying the definition mathematically made me feel all of the rust in my brain from 30 years out of college. I"m sure I'll hit more confusing set theory math, fortunately I have the internet. Such a fun book!

thr0w__4w4y 6y ago

Yes there is some math experience assumed. I know your question was about recommended pre-requisites, not alternatives/supplements to this book, but let me just provide you with a few alternates that are a bit easier to step into. 1) Christof Paar's book, mentioned already by EFruit. It's currently available as a free download, but that will close up soon, so go download it now. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-04101-3 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-04101-3 I bought the hardcopy ~8 years ago and still refer to it. (Note: also as mentioned, Prof. Paar has something like 20 one-hour lectures -- in English -- on Youtube.) 2) Jean-Philippe Aumasson's excellent book (2018) "Serious Cryptography". Very practical, very readable. JPA is the author of the Blake cryptographic hash functions. 3) David Wong's upcoming book "Real World Cryptography" (Manning, 2020). I've read parts of it via Manning's early access program, the book isn't released yet, but good stuff. David blogs regularly too. That should give you enough to chew on for a while!