Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, Second Edition
by BruceSchneier
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (18 October, 1995)
list price: $60.00 -- our price: $37.80
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Editorial Review

Cryptographic techniques have applications far beyond the obvious uses of encoding and decoding information. For Internet developers who need to know about capabilities, such as digital signatures, that depend on cryptographic techniques, there's no better overview than Applied Cryptography, the definitive book on the subject. Bruce Schneier covers general classes of cryptographic protocols and then specific techniques, detailing the inner workings of real-world cryptographic algorithms including the Data Encryption Standard and RSA public-key cryptosystems. The book includes source-code listings and extensive advice on the practical aspects of cryptography implementation, such as the importance of generating truly random numbers and of keeping keys secure. ... Read more

Reviews (91)

The Bible of the Crypto-world
For anyone working or studying the crypto-world (IT Security, Cryptographer, Cryptologists, PKI/PGP/SecureID Technologists, etc.) this is a must read.

For the fascinating world of Cryptography (the practical application of Cryptology) this is an essential textbook that any graduate course of digital security and cryptology should include.It is inteded as a reference book as well as a practical book to have handy for the working professional.

It's no wonder the NSA had asked the author not to publish this book.It leaves the Crypto-world naked to the average viewer/reader.

Excellent Text - Not Too Mathematical
This book provides excellent coverage of the mayor cryptography algorithms.It is a must have (for academic study or implementation), if only for the completeness of coverage and the comprehensive references.The C code provided is adequate, but reasonable programming skills are assumed.The book is not overly mathematical (which many of the other cryptography texts are - this is great for me, as I am more intereseted in practice).There is also good information on assessing / comparing the merits of different algorithms.Great for the practictioner or student taking a first course (it's still not bedtime reading).Mathematicians will look for more ......

Essential reference for any programmer
Over the long term, this is the applied math book that I come back to most often.

The first quarter of the book may come as a surprise. It's not about encryption, it's about secure protocols. This is great stuff. It includes secure key exchange, where you and I can agree on an encryption key in a public conversation, but none of the other listeners know what we agreed on. It includes zero-knowledge proofs, ways of establishing authorization without releasing your identity. It includes lots more, as well. The next brief section discusses different modes for using encryption algorithms, key management, and other logistics.

The third section is what you might have expected: detailed descriptions of many encryption schemes, taking up at least half the book. That includes public key schemes, private key codes, secure hashing algorithms, and all the other details needed for implementing the algorithms. One of the most useful subsections here is a set of pseudorandom number generators. It's not exhaustive, by any means - it omits the Mersenne Twister, for example. Still, it gives a fair set of algorithms, some of which are "cryptographically secure". That means the generator's output strongly resists attempts to find regularities, just the way a truly random sequence would.

The last two chapters give a brief summary of the practice, legalities, and even culture around cryptography.

This won't make you into a crypto professional. Despite its600+ pages, it barely introduces the world of crypto and certainly doesn't release anything from the "closed" world of government agencies. It will, however, give you useful algorithms, a basic background, and an appreciation of just what real crypto is about. That last may be the most important part. Too many people think inventing a good code is like making love: anyone can do it, and they instinctively do it better than most people. Wrong! Real crypto is not for dabblers, and this book gives some sense of what is involved.

The first edition of "Applied Cryptography" was a landmark text, but the second edition is even better. It's so much better that, if you just have the first edition, you really should upgrade to the second, and I've never said that about any other book. ... Read more

Isbn: 0471117099
Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer security    4. Cryptography    5. Discrete Mathematics    6. Programming Languages - General    7. Security    8. Security measures    9. Telecommunication    10. Computers / Security    11. Data security & data encryption   

Handbook of Applied Cryptography
by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. Van Oorschot, Scott A. Vanstone
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (16 October, 1996)
list price: $99.95 -- our price: $87.31
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Reviews (16)

Advanced Crypto for the college mind.
This very detailed work is not for the light hearted. It's an in depth look at the mathmatics behind cryptography. If you're looking for a book to help you program then look for Applied Cryptography by Bruce the crypto king instead. If you're looking for something to help you learn cryptoanalysis and how to break codes then this is the first step.

Fantastic traditional reference
The Chapter 14 - Efficient Implementation - shows several multiple precision algorithms. They are very easy to understand and implement under any microprocessor. It is a very good complement to the book set written by Donald Knuth (The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3 Boxed Set), another fantastic traditional reference.

A very detailed book, but not for everyone.
This is a fairly strong book on crypto, with heavy detail on the math involved.The upside is that the second chapter is devoted to most of the important mathematical theory you'll need to understand for the rest of the book.The downside?That chapter tries to cover just about the same breadth of information as a semester long course in Number Theory.

If you don't have a ton of mathematical background and are scared of having to take a crash course in number theory, or are looking for a higher level view of things, I'd suggest something more along the lines of Bruce Schneier's 'Applied Cryptography' (ASIN 0471117099). If you have some mathematical background, but want to get into things in detail, this is probably for you.

If you're not sure whether you'll like the book, you should definitely take a look at it. While Amazon currently doesn't have sample pages, if you do a Web Search on "Handbook of Applied Cryptography", you can find Sample Chapters hosted online to give you a good feel for the book's style. ... Read more

Isbn: 0849385237
Sales Rank: 118544
Subjects:  1. Access control    2. Algorithms (Computer Programming)    3. Computer Bks - General Information    4. Computers    5. Cryptography    6. Cryptography/Access Control    7. Discrete Mathematics    8. Handbooks, manuals, etc    9. Reference    10. Security   

Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice (3rd Edition)
by William Stallings
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (27 August, 2002)
list price: $81.00 -- our price: $81.00
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Reviews (10)

Excellent
Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice by Stallings is a very good book on crypto.

It is not as detailed as Schneier's Applied Cryptography, but is still a great book.

Meat and Potatoes
This review is for the 3rd edition -
I'm not a cryptographer by any means.I've owned Applied Cryptography(AC) for 4 years.It's been quite helpful but leans farther into theory (not covered in it) than I was willing or able to research at the time.I often found myself needing to refer to other resources over the years.I purchased this book after thumbing through it a few times at the bookstore.I'm not one to run out and spend $80 on a book in haste.After a couple of collective hours in it at the store I bought it with the intention of returning it in the 30 allotted days for a full refund.That date comes tomorrow and I have no intention on returning it.

I would describe it as a self-contained reference.It covers cryptography principles and practices as the title implies.When discussing the algorithms it covers them with roughly the same notation and detail as AC.However, I found the explained examples to be clearer.When I found myself getting lost I took the text's advice and referred to the chapters on mathematics and number theory.Not only did it clear the fog it also bit me with the math bug.Leading me to buy another great book, Prime Obsession (nothing to do with crypto).I should mention that this book is void of code.I didn't find this to be a problem because if I'm not using a crypto lib I usually have to implement the crypto code from scratch.With the knowledge presented in this book I can do it better.FYI: The OpenSSL lib offers a bunch of implemented algorithims.

Surprised that the reviews are posted just to confuse
I am looking at the previous reviews and am really surprised that the book has been published in Aug 2002 (just recently) and the earlier reviews show that they were posted in year 2000 and 2001. It is just confusing the readers because they are not the real reviews. I have not gone through the book, so I don't know how good or bad it is, but at least I know that the reviews are not real. If the reviews are for the earlier editions, then they should be posted under those editions, which anyway have a different ISBN number. Really disappointed.
Unfortunately, I have to put some rating for the book, as in the submission form it is a mandatory field. Hence, I have to put some rating for my submission to go through. I am just putting an average rating, but please ignore my evaluation, as I have not even seen the book. ... Read more

Isbn: 0130914290
Sales Rank: 121895
Subjects:  1. Coding Theory    2. Computer Bks - Other Applications    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer networks    5. Computer security    6. Computers    7. Cryptography/Access Control    8. Data encryption (Computer scie    9. Data encryption (Computer science)    10. Miscellaneous Software    11. Networking - General    12. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    13. Security    14. Security measures    15. Computers / Internet / Security   

Cryptography: Theory and Practice, Second Edition
by Douglas Stinson
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (27 February, 2002)
list price: $79.95 -- our price: $71.26
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Editorial Review

Douglas R. Stinson's Cryptography: Theory and Practice is a mathematically intensive examination of cryptography, including ciphers, the Data Encryption Standard (DES), public key cryptography, one-way hash functions, and digital signatures. Stinson's explication of "zero-sum proofs"--a process by which one person lets another person know that he or she has a password without actually revealing any information--is especially good.

If you are new to the math behind cryptography but want to tackle it, the author covers all of the required background to understand the real mathematics here. Cryptography includes extensive exercises with each chapter and makes an ideal introduction for any math-literate person willing to get acquainted with this material. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Good book after Schneier's Non-Mathematical Treatment
If you are an engineer trying to learn crypto, maybe get a book on number theory to go with this book. It'd be nice if there were fewer errors and more worked out problems, as well.

Overall a good effort but written by a mathematican so you needa book like Schenier's that explains how to use the tools. Maybe Scheier is the one I'd read first. Then readStinson's to understand how the tools work because Scheier's book is mathematically barren.

Volume I of What May Become the Definitive Work
This book takes a fairly rigorous mathematical approach to cryptography. It is intended for upper level undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics, computer science and engineering. I suspect only the quite mathematically inclined computer science and engineering students will find this book helpful. This is not a Boy Scout how to do secret messages book, but a book that will give the professional the data needed to implement cryptographic software, and the mathematician hints on both code breaking and creating.

This is the second edition of this book which includes:

the latest Federal Information Processing Standards
the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)
Wiener's attack on low decryption exponent RSA
substitution-permutation networks to introduce block cipher design and analysis concepts,
the Random Oracle model for hash functions, and much more.

Some things included in the first edition have been removed with the promise from the author to do a volume II that will take these sections and expand them and with more material.

Could be a great book .... but it falls short
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. ... Read more

Isbn: 1584882069
Subjects:  1. Applied    2. Coding theory    3. Computer Bks - Communications / Networking    4. Computer Books: General    5. Computer Science    6. Computers    7. Cryptography    8. Cryptography/Access Control    9. Discrete Mathematics    10. Discrete Mathematics (Computer Science)    11. Security