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This looks very nice! Thank you! I'm currently taking Cryptography at university and I find the resources online to be quite scarce. I mostly find myself readi

This looks very nice! Thank you! I'm currently taking Cryptography at university and I find the resources online to be quite scarce. I mostly find myself reading Wikipedia. I don't know if I'm missing some background knowledge but some of the math notations tend to be quite difficult to understand. I have spent around 10 hours trying to understand Differential Cryptanalysis unsuccessfully!

zelphirkalt 2y ago
Yeah when it comes to math Wikipedia is rarely a good introduction to any topic. Maybe if one studied mathematics before or something, but definitely not for most other people.
- baby 2y ago
  that's really a shame actually, I think many people try to use wikipedia for Math and it's almost never a good idea
__alexander 2y ago
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. Also with the math notation, you a take a photo of it and ask ChatGPT to try to explain it.
- alabhyajindal 2y ago
  Thank you! I'll take a look! Yes, I agree with the suggestion on math notation - I should start doing that.
  - binwiederhier 2y ago
    I can highly recommend Cryptography Engineering by Bruce Schneier. I read it years ago and to this day it still helps me regularly.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      Cryptography Engineering definitely does not hold up. It predates (almost willfully, given the chronology) modern notions of AEAD, key derivation, random number generation, and elliptic curve asymmetric cryptography. The standard recommendation these days is Aumasson's Serious Cryptography. I like David Wong's Real-World Cryptography as well.
      - binwiederhier 2y ago
        I really enjoyed the book and it certainly helped me, but it's also the only cryptography book I've ever read. I appreciate you challenging my suggestion! I just checked and it has been a whooping 12 years since I purchased/read the book, so I retract my recommendation.
        tptacek 2y ago
        Sorry, you're right, I should have been less clinical about this. Practical Cryptography (which is essentially the exact same book by the same authors) was also the first cryptography book that clicked in any meaningful way for me, and really lit me up about the prospect of finding vulnerabilities in cryptosystems. I would actively recommend against using it as a guide in 2025. But you're not crazy to have liked it before. Funny enough, 12 years ago, I wrote a blog post about this: https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2013/07/22/applied-practical-cryptography/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2013/07/22/applied-practical-cry...
        binwiederhier 2y ago
        I read the beginning of the post and it looks quite interesting. I'll read the rest tomorrow when my mind is sharper. I checked my blog and I also wrote a post about some crypto related things shortly after I purchased the book. It's a post about a bug in the JDK that I stumbled across, which I am certain I would not have understood without Bruce's book: https://blog.heckel.io/2014/03/01/cipherinputstream-for-aead-modes-is-broken-in-jdk7-gcm/ https://blog.heckel.io/2014/03/01/cipherinputstream-for-aead... Btw, I was a bit of a fan boy back then and I got the signed copy of the book, haha.
baby 2y ago
Not so long ago I wrote the book I wish I had when I was studying cryptography back in uni: https://livebook.manning.com/book/real-world-cryptography/chapter-1/ https://livebook.manning.com/book/real-world-cryptography/ch...

zelphirkalt 2y ago

Yeah when it comes to math Wikipedia is rarely a good introduction to any topic. Maybe if one studied mathematics before or something, but definitely not for most other people.

baby 2y ago
that's really a shame actually, I think many people try to use wikipedia for Math and it's almost never a good idea

__alexander 2y ago

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. Also with the math notation, you a take a photo of it and ask ChatGPT to try to explain it.

alabhyajindal 2y ago
Thank you! I'll take a look! Yes, I agree with the suggestion on math notation - I should start doing that.
- binwiederhier 2y ago
  I can highly recommend Cryptography Engineering by Bruce Schneier. I read it years ago and to this day it still helps me regularly.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    Cryptography Engineering definitely does not hold up. It predates (almost willfully, given the chronology) modern notions of AEAD, key derivation, random number generation, and elliptic curve asymmetric cryptography. The standard recommendation these days is Aumasson's Serious Cryptography. I like David Wong's Real-World Cryptography as well.
    - binwiederhier 2y ago
      I really enjoyed the book and it certainly helped me, but it's also the only cryptography book I've ever read. I appreciate you challenging my suggestion! I just checked and it has been a whooping 12 years since I purchased/read the book, so I retract my recommendation.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        Sorry, you're right, I should have been less clinical about this. Practical Cryptography (which is essentially the exact same book by the same authors) was also the first cryptography book that clicked in any meaningful way for me, and really lit me up about the prospect of finding vulnerabilities in cryptosystems. I would actively recommend against using it as a guide in 2025. But you're not crazy to have liked it before. Funny enough, 12 years ago, I wrote a blog post about this: https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2013/07/22/applied-practical-cryptography/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2013/07/22/applied-practical-cry...
        binwiederhier 2y ago
        I read the beginning of the post and it looks quite interesting. I'll read the rest tomorrow when my mind is sharper. I checked my blog and I also wrote a post about some crypto related things shortly after I purchased the book. It's a post about a bug in the JDK that I stumbled across, which I am certain I would not have understood without Bruce's book: https://blog.heckel.io/2014/03/01/cipherinputstream-for-aead-modes-is-broken-in-jdk7-gcm/ https://blog.heckel.io/2014/03/01/cipherinputstream-for-aead... Btw, I was a bit of a fan boy back then and I got the signed copy of the book, haha.

baby 2y ago

Not so long ago I wrote the book I wish I had when I was studying cryptography back in uni: https://livebook.manning.com/book/real-world-cryptography/chapter-1/ https://livebook.manning.com/book/real-world-cryptography/ch...