Friday, May 5, 2006

Cryptography Podcast Series

   Security Now just concluded an amazing podcast series on the subject of cryptography.  Steve Gibson does an excellent job of making the world of crypto accessible.  No serious math is needed to understand it.  He covers everything from stream ciphers, to block ciphers, to public key cryptography and certificates.  If you have any interest in the subject, check out this six-part series:


Intro to Crypto


One Time Pads


Block Ciphers


Public Key Crypto


Cryptographic Hashes


Primes and Certificates


If you want to learn more, there are two books I recommend:


Crypto by Steven Levy - A modern history of crypto.  Levy is a great author.


Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier - If you want to learn how this stuff really works.  You'll need some math for this book.

3 comments:

  1. You mean just reading <I>Cryptonomicon</I> wasn't good enough?

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  2. You may be joking but Cryptonomicon is--in addition to being a great book--actually a very good introduction to the subject of cryptography.  I almost put it on my list.

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