NO! Applied Crypto is at times a fascinating book, but it is terrible for a developer that wants to learn the fundamentals of crypto and how to avoid the most c

NO! Applied Crypto is at times a fascinating book, but it is terrible for a developer that wants to learn the fundamentals of crypto and how to avoid the most common mistakes people make. Its also really old at this point. A much better book is Schneier, Ferguson and Kohno's "Cryptography Engineering"[1]. It covers what makes for strong crypto primitives and why weaker ones are considered broken. Note that is book is starting to get a bit out dated (I don't remember it covering ECC at all, for example), but I don't know of any better book. I also endorse the Matasano Crypto challenges and the Coursera Crypto class taught by Dan Boneh as excellent learning resources. [1] : https://www.schneier.com/book-ce.html https://www.schneier.com/book-ce.html