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Cryptography: Theory and Practice

Douglas R. Stinson
Publisher: 
Chapman & Hall/CRC
Publication Date: 
2006
Number of Pages: 
593
Format: 
Hardcover
Edition: 
3
Series: 
Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications 36
Price: 
69.95
ISBN: 
1-58488-508-4
Category: 
Textbook
BLL Rating: 

The Basic Library List Committee strongly recommends this book for acquisition by undergraduate mathematics libraries.

[Reviewed by
Darren Glass
, on
05/2/2006
]

Cryptography is a large and ever growing subject, which at times feels like a branch of mathematics, at times feels like a branch of computer science, and often involves bringing in questions of politics, marketing, business, and (since we are on the verge, or at least on the verge of being on the verge, of quantum cryptography) physics. Books in this area are therefore required to choose their target audience very carefully, trying to decide exactly which aspects to cover and what background they may assume, and they need to walk a fine line in order to be both useful and readable. Douglas Stinson's book Cryptography: Theory and Practice has walked that line well for more than a decade. It might not be as practical as some programmers would like or as rigorously theoretical as some mathematicians would like, but for most people who are between those two extremes this book does an excellent job.

The first edition of Stinson's book came out in 1995 and quickly became a mainstay on the syllabi of the cryptography courses that were starting to pop up in math and computer science departments around the globe (including, I should add for reasons of full disclosure, the course that I took at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998). The second edition, released in 2002, scaled back the scope of the book quite significantly, as the author intended to write a second volume to supplement the main book.

The third edition, released last year, once again expands the scope of the book and includes far more topics than one could include in a single course. Those topics include full chapters on Block Ciphers, Hash Functions, RSA Cryptosystems, ElGamal Cryptosystems, Signature Schemes, Pseudo-random Number Generators, Entity Authentication, Key Distribution, Secret Sharing Schemes, and Multicast Security as well as several other topics. (A full table of contents can be found above). Many of these are serious topics, and they are treated at a serious level. In order to discuss them well, Stinson spends a significant amount of time introducing ideas from mathematics that computer scientists may not know and ideas from computer science that mathematicians may not know, including some number theory, some probability theory, some information theory, and some of the theory of elliptic curves. In the process of doing so, he inevitably oversimplifies many of these topics, but he does as good a job as one could expect given the context, and the bibliography points the reader to many sources where they can get deeper information on these topics.

This book is extremely well written, and gets better with each passing edition. There are certainly easier introductions to cryptography available, and this would not be the first book I would recommend to an undergraduate student who was interested in the topic, but the clear exposition and large number of exercises would make the book a good choice for either a graduate level course or for a researcher who is interested in learning more about the field of cryptography to peruse. For a book that covers this quantity and depth of material I cannot imagine a better choice.


Darren Glass (dglass@gettysburg.edu) is an Assistant Professor at Gettysburg College.

 CLASSICAL CRYPTOGRAPHY
Introduction: Some Simple Cryptosystems
Cryptanalysis
Notes
Exercises

SHANNON'S THEORY
Introduction
Elementary Probability Theory
Perfect Secrecy
Entropy
Properties of Entropy
Spurious Keys and Unicity Distance
Product Cryptosystems
Notes
Exercises

BLOCK CIPHERS AND THE ADVANCED ENCRYPTION STANDARD
Introduction
Substitution-Permutation Networks
Linear Cryptanalysis
Differential Cryptanalysis
The Data Encryption Standard
The Advanced Encryption Standard
Modes of Operation
Notes and References
Exercises

CRYPTOGRAPHIC HASH FUNCTIONS
Hash Functions and Data Integrity
Security of Hash Functions
Iterated Hash Functions
Message Authentication Codes
Unconditionally Secure MACs
Notes and References
Exercises

THE RSA CRYPTOSYSTEM AND FACTORING INTEGERS
Introduction to Public-key Cryptography
More Number Theory
The RSA Cryptosystem
Primality Testing
Square Roots Modulo n
Factoring Algorithms
Other Attacks on RSA
The Rabin Cryptosystem
Semantic Security of RSA
Notes and References
Exercises

PUBLIC-KEY CRYPTOGRAPHY AND DISCRETE LOGARITHMS
The ElGamal Cryptosystem
Algorithms for the Discrete Logarithm Problem
Lower Bounds on the Complexity of Generic Algorithms
Finite Fields
Elliptic Curves
Discrete Logarithm Algorithms in Practice
Security of ElGamal Systems
Notes and References
Exercises

SIGNATURE SCHEMES
Introduction
Security Requirements for Signature Schemes
The ElGamal Signature Scheme
Variants of the ElGamal Signature Scheme
Provably Secure Signature Schemes
Undeniable Signatures
Fail-stop Signatures
Notes and References
Exercises

PSEUDO-RANDOM NUMBER GENERATION
Introduction and Examples
Indistinguishability of Probability Distributions
The Blum-Blum-Shub Generator
Probabilistic Encryption
Notes and References
Exercises

IDENTIFICATION SCHEMES AND ENTITY AUTHENTICATION
Introduction
Challenge-and-Response in the Secret-Key Setting
Challenge-and-Response in the Public-Key Setting
The Schnorr Identification Scheme
The Okamoto Identification Scheme
The Guillou-Quisquater Identification Scheme
Notes and References
Exercises

KEY DISTRIBUTION
Introduction
Diffie-Hellman Key Predistribution
Unconditionally Secure Key Predistribution
Key Distribution Patterns
Session Key Distribution Schemes
Notes and References
Exercises

KEY AGREEMENT SCHEMES
Introduction
Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement
MTI Key Agreement Schemes
Key Agreement Using Self-Certifying Keys
Encrypted Key Exchange
Conference Key Agreement Schemes
Notes and References
Exercises

PUBLIC-KEY INFRASTRUCTURE
Introduction: What is a PKI?
Certificates
Trust Models
The Future of PKI?
Identity-Based Cryptography
Notes and References
Exercises

SECRET SHARING SCHEMES
Introduction: The Shamir Threshold Scheme
Access Structures and General Secret Sharing
Information Rate and Construction of Efficient Schemes
Notes and References
Exercises

MULTICAST SECURITY AND COPYRIGHT PROTECTION
Introduction to Multicast Security
Broadcast Encryption
Multicast Re-Keying
Copyright Protection
Tracing Illegally Redistributed Keys
Notes and References
Exercises
FURTHER READING
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX