The sci.crypt FAQ is a decent place to start.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cryptography-faq/part01/
Then take a look at the _Handbook of Applied Cryptography_ for an
excellent and precise technical overview.
http://cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/
Supplement with _Applied Cryptography_ to see what the intuition for using
some of these primitives and protocols happens to be. Probably the
friendliest book you're likely to find, although it leaves out a little
too much in parts.
(sorry, you have to buy this one)
(be aware that some of it is out of date now, especially with the AES
process underway)
>From there it depends on what kind of cryptography you want to do. For
instance, if you decide you want to see the proofs which show why RSA
works, you might look at Neal Koblitz' book _A Course in Number Theory and
Cryptography_. That same book also has a neat introduction to factoring
methods circa 1993-94.
Other places to look include link farms like the ones due to Helger Lipmaa
http://www.moomin.ee/~helger/crypto/
or Ron Rivest
http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/crypto-security.html
which have pointers to lecture notes, courses on cryptography, and
suchlike.
Thanks,
-David
On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Hans wrote:
> Does anyone out there know of any good resources for getting a good
> (decent? marginaly acceptable?) beginning in cryptography? Books or
