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This is exactly the kind of book on cryptography I need. The book uses math & pseudocode to describe algorithms instead of using popular languages like Python or C/C++. This makes it language agnostic. Code can be very opinionated in my opinion.
I got that same impression from “Applied Cryptography” (Schneier). But Bruce isn’t exactly giving it away! :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow discrete math was the only math I understood in CS. Calculus, on the other hand, completely eluded me.
How did you graduate with a CS degree?
(Though, what do you mean by calculus? I assume you mean integration and differentiation and real numbers and stuff? Or something else?)
This is exactly the kind of book on cryptography I need. The book uses math & pseudocode to describe algorithms instead of using popular languages like Python or C/C++. This makes it language agnostic. Code can be very opinionated in my opinion.
I don't know mathematic notation well at all, but can easily reason about most code.
In some sense, programming languages are a mathematical notation, too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow discrete math was the only math I understood in CS. Calculus, on the other hand, completely eluded me.
How did you graduate with a CS degree?
I took extra calculus classes from the math department. Those are way harder than what you need for introductory physics.
So should I see primes as a weakness in cryptography?
I've often thought the use of prime numbers to be the weakness in cryptography. Whilst theory is different in practice due to machine limitations, there are only so many prime numbers a machine can present in a limited timespan restricting the range of primes available to use. With this in mind, and then knowing what a webserver will typically use by simply browsing the website with different encryption algo's disabl…
First of all, primes are only used to arrive at a session key, and once you have a session key you're in the land of symmetric algorithms, which provide security by permutations rather than vectoring into prime spaces. The content of a web page does not matter at all in terms of the security being provided. A 404 is just as secure as a valid home page, in terms of cryptography. (Not in terms of application security, but that's a whole different thing.)
Second, the supply of prime numbers is countable but also infinite, and the relation between a number space and the number of primes within it is well established within the workable sizes. We have upper and lower bounds on the number of primes within certain ranges. This is partly why we end up with certain key sizes as being secure and other key sizes as being insufficient. Secure key sizes (in asymmetric algorithms) partly are secure because there are so many primes that can be fodder for key generation.
> All the sensible textbook titles were already taken. Actual joy not guaranteed. Like a lot of people (I imagine) I made it through a CS bachelors program not really ‘getting’ the discrete math combinatorics part. Crypto is an area where those concepts really really matter. It’s great to see this resource available!
Somehow discrete math was the only math I understood in CS. Calculus, on the other hand, completely eluded me.
It's a shame that match curriculum for non-math-majors is an all-roads-lead-to-calculus affair. I think we scare a lot of potentially talented people away from math with that approach.
I've often thought the use of prime numbers to be the weakness in cryptography. Whilst theory is different in practice due to machine limitations, there are only so many prime numbers a machine can present in a limited timespan restricting the range of primes available to use. With this in mind, and then knowing what a webserver will typically use by simply browsing the website with different encryption algo's disabl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow discrete math was the only math I understood in CS. Calculus, on the other hand, completely eluded me.
How did you graduate with a CS degree?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow discrete math was the only math I understood in CS. Calculus, on the other hand, completely eluded me.
If the whole of math were represented by the surface of the planet, "discrete math" would be more than half of it. Calculus (i.e. differentiation/integration on the reals) on the other hand, would be a city. Perhaps a very populated city, but just one. It's a shame that match curriculum for non-math-majors is an all-roads-lead-to-calculus affair. I think we scare a lot of potentially talented people away from math wi…