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Well I personally find clarity in the history of things — they provide context and a narrative for the topic in question. You don't start a class on warfare wit
by devindotcom 13y ago
Well I personally find clarity in the history of things — they provide context and a narrative for the topic in question. You don't start a class on warfare with Afghanistan, for instance, or even WWII. It's worth going back to the beginning, if only for a cursory look at how wars were fought, how innovations came about and when, and which of them is still influential.
Similarly, with crypto, I think it's about understanding how and why cryptography emerged, and learning about the arms race it developed into as people went from decoder-ring level encryption to the present state of the art. Knowing when and why key exchanges were first created, how they were broken back then, why one-time pads are still useful in some circumstances, and so on I think contributes to a larger understanding, something that exceeds a technical one - and I also believe that will lead to better implementation (though I don't have much to back that up).
Also, there are interesting stories in there. Learning why Enigma was unbreakable, and subsequently how it was broken and the attending circumstances, informed as they were by politics and strategic warfare, is a lesson not in cyphers, but in cryptography. I think that's important, though obviously that is not OP's goal! I just think it should the way one starts — at the beginning.
- zenbowman 13y agoWell said my friend, well said. The comment you responded to reminds me of my favorite quote of Alan Kay where he compares software culture to pop culture, and expounds on the importance of history to rise to the higher levels. I was lucky enough to learn cryptography from Len Adleman at USC, and guess what he started with? Classical ciphers.
- redler 13y ago"The Code Book", by Simon Singh, would be a good companion read. It covers much of the above, and is both compelling and well-written. Edit: Fixed from "Code" to "The Code Book". Although "Code" (Charles Petzold), on a different subject, is also excellent.
- devindotcom 13y agoThanks, I will.
- marshray 13y agoHistory is great as a topic in its own right. But in my view, we already have lots of books that cover crypto through World War II. Very little of it is relevant to modern ciphers. Some of it is even actively harmful, witness old advice about "RNG entropy depletion" and "stale keys" resulting in overly complex and failure-prone crypto systems. What we need more of relevant, modern, best-practices-in-light-of-latest-attacks information suitable for careful, conscientious developers who have to build actual systems out of it.