There's an important distinction here that most people miss, namely the difference between a 'cryptographer' and a 'cryptography engineer'. A cryptographer buil

There's an important distinction here that most people miss, namely the difference between a 'cryptographer' and a 'cryptography engineer'. A cryptographer builds schemes and protocols and proves their security. (Phil Rogaway is a cryptographer. Bellare, Boneh, Rivest, etc.) A cryptography engineer writes code that implements schemes developed by cryptographers. To be a good cryptography engineer you really need to learn how to break systems. In contrast, some of the best and most important cryptographers never even touch a keyboard except to typeset research papers.