Cryptography: Theory and Practice, Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: It packs a lot in a small space
Review: A book that tries to cover the theory and practice of cryptography in only four hundred pages has to make a lot of ruthless choices.

Professor Stinson wisely concentrates on theory, with a few nods to practice like explaining efficient modular exponentiation.

The theoretical material starts with the indispensable foundation of information theory and jumps straight into the operation of commercially important algorithms and their weaknesses. These are short but well done. For example Stinson has the best presentation of differential cryptanalysis that I've seen.

The breadth is good, covering most of the important magic that you can work with crypto: secret sharing, key exchange, zero knowledge proofs, etc.

Oddly, there doesn't seem to be a discussion of the blinding techniques used in Chaum's digital cash. Maybe that's because they're not yet a major part of the landscape, but then why spend space on the McEliece system?

A useful fraction of the book is accessible if you just have high school math, all of it with college math.

This would be a fine introduction to crypto.

Rating:
Summary: Could be a great book .... but it falls short
Review: As other people have pointed out, this is not a mathematics book, and it is not an algorithm (recipies) book. It could be a great book for people that are interested in learning these tools to actually use them, either in a research or product development context (something besides homework). Unfortunately, the number of typos, in key mathematical expressions AND PORTIONS OF THE EXPLANATIONS is staggering. Go to the author's web page and you will find that some chapters, like 4 for example, average more than one typo per page (and some of these 'typos' are full sentences, or math expressions that do not look like anything that is actually printed on the page). If you do not have that errata sheet handy, you will waste a lot of time trying to understand the text, or trying to solve the exercises. If you are trying to learn from this book, without attending a class and without the errata, you will simply give up. It is a real shame because it has all the makings of a great book.

Rating:
Summary: the math behind crypto
Review: If you liked Schneier's book but disliked the way he covers the mathematical background with a lot of hand-waving, then I highly recommend this book. This is where you can learn how it all really works.

Rating:
Summary: second edition is the first volume of a two-part book
Review: The first edition of this book was one of the few excellent text books on cryptography. It is now somewhat outdated, so a second updated edition was much anticipated. Indeed, the second edition does improve upon the first edition in many ways. There are lots of updates and new exercises. Its major shortcoming, however, is that important chapters such as random number bit generation and key agreement have been deleted and deferred to the second volume of the second edition (which, according to the preface, is a works in progress). I have used the first edition in a crypto course I teach, but will not use the second edition in future course offerings because of the missing coverage of important topics. Also, even when the second volume is published, it would be too expensive for students to purchase both volumes ...

Rating:
Summary: Very good book! I have really enjoyed it!
Review: The philosophy underlying the previous edition stays the same. The presentation of concepts is rigorous but neither difficult nor trivial, suitable for readers with basic notions of linear algebra. Moreover, new material has been added.

Chapter 3, which deals with block ciphers and linear and differential cryptoanalysis, is very well-written. This is the best presentation of such a subject in few pages I have seen until now.

Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 have been significantly updated and expanded with concepts and techniques that are fundamental in order to understand current researches and state of knowledge in Cryptography (e.g., random oracle model, semantic security, new attacks against public key cryptosystems, an in-depth introduction to elliptic curve ...).

Compared to the previous edition, more emphasys has been given in some parts to security proofs (e.g, chapter 4), and several new exercises have been proposed at the end of each chapter.

Other readers have pointed out that there are some typos (the author has made available an errata list on his home page) but I think that the value of the book is not reduced in any way.

In my opinion it is a great book for people who want to be introduced to problems, ideas, and techniques used in Cryptography.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Book on Cryptography
Review: This book is well suited for software developers, students, and research scientists alike. The first edition has proven to be an invaluable source of information on cryptology. The second edition covers a subset of the material from the first edition. However, the text has been revised, expanded, and new material has been added that covers more recent results in the field. A forthcomming companion book has been promised that will cover the remaining material (e.g., zero-knowledge proof systems). Readers that are interested in combinatorics should also consider picking up a copy of "Combinatorial Algorithms: Generation, Enumeration, and Search" by Stinson and Kreher.