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[book review]

Everyday Cryptography: Fundamental Principles and Applications (Paperback)

Great Introduction but a lot of material, so it isn't a quick read. The book assumes almost no prior knowledge, as most things are explained from first principles but it always helps to be familiar with the lingo. I read this like a novel, from start to finish. I'm not a cryptography expert nor even studying it at university, I just did this in order to learn (self-teaching).

Fairly light on the mathematics but provides enough of the basics for an elementary understanding. I'm glad that the material covering Certificate Authority functions are not as prominent as in the Cryptography For Dummies book and it is good to see the protocols / algorithms for the main types of encryption too.

All the essential topics are covered and I'd say that the text is clearly written that anyone with a modicum of IT knowledge should be able to follow it. The content is not so esoteric nor complicated but does require some effort to get through it all.

The book starts with a historical overview (as many do) of how cryptography came about and why it is necessary. In section two the author describes cryptographic primitives and builds up the fundamentals of what is needed for a cryptographic tool kit: e.g. hash functions, public key cryptography, modes of operation, a/symmetric encryption, digital signatures and so on. Section three looks at key management while section four looks at applications.