[Sussex] Cryptography, Cryptology and Ciphers...

[Rupert Swarbrick]

Colin Tuckley wrote:
> Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> 
>>All,
>>
>>Does anyone know of a good tutorial or book on basic encryption
>>techniques?  I need the real basics here, and if that means that I need
>>to buy a maths book and learn from GCSE upwards (I've currently got a
>>grade C, and that was nearly 5 years ago...), then so be it.
> 
> 
> Try reading "The Code Book" by Simon Singh, it's a good introduction to
> cryptography from both the historical and the technical level.
> 
> Colin
> 
Hear, hear. His maths is not quite thorough in the last chapter about
the RSA algorithm, but in general it's an excellent book.

Seriously though, cryptography is an extremely mathematical subject.
With 3 A-levels in Maths and going off to study maths at university next
year, I can say that a number theory textbook I've been reading on the
side gets very hard... just as it gets to the "applied" RSA algorithm.

Having looked at the twofish algorithm and so on, my eyes started to
glaze as I wasn't following the maths. So I've decided to give it a
couple of years until I can follow the interesting bit as well as the
cryptography... :)

Rupert
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