Introduction to Cryptography with Mathematical Foundations and Computer Implementations

This book is a very comprehensible introduction to cryptography. It will be very suitable for undergraduate students. There is adequate material in the book for teaching one or two courses on cryptography. The author has provided many mathematically oriented as well as computer-based exercises. I strongly recommend this book as an introductory book on cryptography for undergraduates. —IACR Book Reviews, April 2011 … a particularly good entry in a crowded field. … As someone who has taught cryptography courses in the past, I was particularly impressed with the scaled-down versions of DES and AES that the author describes … . Stanoyevitch’s writing style is clear and engaging, and the book has many examples illustrating the mathematical concepts throughout. … One of the many smart decisions that the author made was to also include many computer implementations and exercises at the end of each chapter. … It is also worth noting that he has many MATLAB implementations on his website. … It is clear that Stanoyevitch designed this book to be used by students and that he has taught this type of student many times before. The book feels carefully structured in a way that builds nicely … it is definitely a solid choice and will be on the short list of books that I would recommend to a student wanting to learn about the field. —MAA Reviews, May 2011 I perused the structure, the writing, the pedagogical approach/layout: I can recognize a labor of pedagogical love when I see one. Certainly, the colloquial but still rigorous approach makes the concepts accessible, and the worked out solutions for the student, the much-needed and appreciated chapter on finite fields, and the division of problems into theory and programming are sensible. But it is the little thoughtful touches that make the book truly shine: the position of the notation index right on the front cover; the historical excursions as mental relief to keep students’ interest peaked; judicious use of accessible examples plus step-by-step worked out math to illustrate concepts; and whitespace in the margin for notes, the text layout with breathing room to offset the inevitable terseness of mathematical cryptology. It is apparent that Prof. Stanoyevitch put a lot of pedagogical and intellectual effort into making a textbook — a book aimed at students that makes life easier for the instructor. In addition, the book’s companion site features short MATLAB m-files and applets for quick demos. The Index of Algorithms is useful. In short, this is a very well done, thoughtful introduction to cryptography. —Daniel Bilar, Department of Computer Science, University of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA