Crypto 101 explains practical cryptography
Summary
Laurens Van Houtven leads from randomness and block ciphers through hashes and MACs to key exchange and signatures. Crypto 101 is available free of charge. The book contains exercises and implementation examples.
Ideas
- Encryption protects confidentiality but not automatically integrity.
- MACs detect changes with a shared secret key.
- Digital signatures allow public verification of origin.
- Key exchange creates shared secrets over insecure channels.
Insights
- Cryptographic building blocks provide separate security properties.
- Secure primitives become insecure when combined wrongly.
- Threat models must come before the choice of algorithm.
Facts
- It is aimed at programmers without prior knowledge of cryptography.
Recommendations
- Use reviewed protocols and libraries.
- Only implement primitives in isolated learning projects.
References
Links to the original source and the Web Archive open in a new tab.