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An introduction to cryptography
Diffie W. (ed), Hellman M., John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,New York, NY,1984.Type:Book |
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Date Reviewed: 02/01/86 |
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This chapter is a revised version of the authors’ classic paper [1]. It is an excellent introduction to the field owing to its broad coverage and superb bibliography. The paper has the following outline: (1) Cryptographic Fundamentals: Privacy and Authentication; Basic Concepts; Cryptanalytic Attacks; Unconditional and Computational Security; Public-Key Systems; Digital Signatures. (2) Examples of Systems and Solutions: Substitution; Transposition; Polyalphabetic Ciphers; Coherent Running Key Cipher; Codes; Hagelin Machine; Rotor Machine; Shift Registers; IBM Systems and DES; Analog Systems; Public-Key Distribution Systems; RSA Public-Key Cryptosystem; Trapdoor Knapsacks. (3) Cryptographic Taxonomy: Block and Stream Ciphers; Cryptosystems as Finite Automata; Structure of Some Synchronous Systems; Some Systems Derived from Block Systems. (4) Cryptography in Practice: Key Management; Indicators; Traffic Analysis and Playback; Error Control; Operation and Maintenance; Integration with Other Security Measures; Certification. (5) Applications of Cryptography: Time-Sharing Systems; Communication Cryptography.
The only weakness of this paper is the fact that it is rapidly becoming outdated. The authors do not, for example, discuss or have any references to the breaking by Shamir [2], Adleman [3], and Brickell [4] of the trapdoor knapsack schemes, or to the elegant probabilistic encryption schemes of Goldwasser and Micali [5]. It is also missing references to work after 1979, and a lot has happened in the field since then. Nonetheless, this remains my first choice as an introductory paper in the field.
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1) |
Diffie, W.; and Hellman, M. E.Privacy and authentication: an introduction to cryptography, Proc. IEEE 67 (1979), 397–427.
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2) |
Shamir, A.A polynomial-time algorithm for breaking the basic Merkle-Hellman cryptosystem, in Proc. of the 23rd symposium on foundations of computer science (1982), IEEE, New York, 1982, 145–152.
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3) |
Adleman, L.On breaking generalized knapsack public-key cryptosystems, in Proc. of the 15th ACM symposium on theory of computing (Boston, MA, April 25–27, 1983), ACM, New York, 1983, 402–412.
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4) |
Brickell, E. F.Solving low density knapsacks, in Advances in cryptology, Proc. of Crypto 83, Plenum, New York, 1984, 25–37.
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5) |
Goldwasser, S.; and Micali, S.Probabilistic encryption, J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 28 (1984), 270–299.
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Reviewer:
R. L. Rivest
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Review #: CR123182 |
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