Rating: 
Summary: I never though Cryptography could be so easy to understand
Review: Mr. Schneier does a beautiful job of making the most complex topics of cryptography easy to understand. His examples and explanations brilliantly explain the topics. This book is actually a very interesting approach to something that at first glance would appear dull and dry. There are plenty of charts and diagrams, as well as the source code for popular encryption algorithms. These visuals, and the accompanying text have really aided me in understanding cryptography. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to have a better understanding of cryptography. Great job Mr. Schneier.
Rating: 
Summary: theoretical but boring
Review: It covers many theories. However, this book is boring and it is hard to transfer what you learned to real world application without other resources. You can not download the small C programs in book if you don't pay ($). Probably I should buy other books with free programs.
Rating:
Summary: Great reading for someone who is curious about security.
Review: Security bible. Contains indepth technical details of security protocols and concepts.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Of course, one of the best book i've ever read about this field.
It's to be underlined the division of the book: in the first part you can find a very interesting summarize about cryptography and its algorithms.
In the second part there is a little introduction on maths field (it's better to have a base on this field to understand this part very well),
and then there are some chapters dedicated to implementations.. Well done
Rating: 
Summary: THE source for information on cryptography.
Review: If you are interested in understanding cryptography, this book should be at your side. Mr. Schneier has produced a book that speaks to beginners as well as experts. This volume includes source code for popular algorithms and is highly recommended for those who wish to be informed on the most widely used algorithms. Only gets 4 stars because much recent information is not in the book. Hopefully the author is working on an update that will include the latest advances.(I would have given it 4.5 stars if it was possible)
Rating:
Summary: Dense, but Useful
Review: Schneier's book is a great primer for programmer's looking to expand into crypto. It gives a good overview of protocols and implementations, and goes the extra mile in telling budding cryptographers what has already been tried and proven to be weak.
My only detractions are the stunning amount of references embedded in each page (a testament to how well-versed Schneier is on the subject) and the lack of mathematical depth (which is the key to truly understanding cryptanalysis). Obviously, the copious amounts of references are where the mathematical depth can be found, but it would have been nice to extend the work another couple of chapters to cover more details on quadratic residues and NP-complete problems.
All in all, a must have for implementers of cryptographic algorithms. Maybe a third edition that covers the last few years will come out soon.
Rating:
Summary: Great reference book, OK read
Review: Although this is still considered the bible of cryptography, I read it like a novel and found it only ok, but it serves as an invaluable reference. I find that quoting pages out of this book stops people arguing with me when I talk about Crypto in my job.
Key thing about this book is that it describes many algorithms that you have never heard of and never need to. Having an understanding of what is mainstream and what are the basics will help you.
At the end of the day if you are serious about Cryptography then you really need to get a copy of this.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: The foundations outlined in the first three parts of the book are strengthened with a practical language and I sum up. I received the book few days ago and it impressed me the form in which arrives to the reader, in the personal thing the knowledge of the book they will help me to strengthen my knowledge in cryptography. Maybe with images of digital certificates the book would have bigger back, although for the year of edition it is understandable.
Rating:
Summary: Still good, but starting to be out of date
Review: This is a highly useful, very clearly and lucidly written, and quite comprehensive coverage of cryptography up through the mid-90s. Unfortunately, quite a few developments have occurred since it was written - for example, the new AES encryption standard is not covered. And some of the coverage of legal and political issues is now obsolete - a lot has happened in this area in the past few years. It's still a very good book, but it needs an update.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: If there's one book I keep referring to again and again, it's this one. It is very well written and a joy to read. Schneier has given us an excellent blend of humour, crypto and great writing. It's not very mathematical (there are other books like the handbook of applied crypto by Menezes et al. for that) and gets straight to the guts of the algorithms, and it's been very helpful when implementing algorithms. Though it's slightly old, I'd recommend this book to anyone starting out on cryptography.
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