Cryptography Decrypted

by H.X. Mel, Doris Baker

Excellent Book

Genres: Programming, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published December 31, 2000

Reviews

[Beck Frost · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was used as a text book in a class. This book is really good at explaining the math behind cyphers and breaking things down in a text book style. However, the author does step into the book and gives his opinions (which I think were supposed to be jokes but they fall flat) which makes me wonder if this was intended to be a text book. At one point he makes a joke out of how the US Educational system is lacking compared European countries. If this was a text book then the joke should have been a notation of fact with data to back it up and not a jab that states "Well, what to do, what to do? Don't teach them (the masses) to read! Although it may not be ethical or particularly democratic, this approach worked for quite a long time. Major institutions supported it for centuries (and based on the reading scores of many American children, perhaps some of them still do.)" That is a bold statement to suggest that big institutions are still working to keep the people in the US uneducated. Not saying that he isn't right, but statements like this should not be made casually and need to have facts backing them up. Yes, our test scores are low, but this is speculative conjecture and does not belong in a book that is supposed to be based completely on fact. If it is not a text book, then fine. Unfortunately, I was asked to purchase it via a class of the American education system...irony.

[Logicitis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible. There are better sources, more entertainingly written and infinitely better edited, available for free in half-educated forums on the bulletin boards. If you can't remember bulletin boards, then this book is not for you. Heck, if you can remember bulletin boards, this book is not for you. This book exists so the publisher and the author get paid by universities who require it, tho why they require this piece of wasted trees, I cannot fathom.

[sid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a fair amount of helpful information about cryptography, even though it is a dozen years old. I wanted to read the mathematical explanations in Appendix A, but not bad enough to power through it.

[Paul Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy introduction to cryptography. Later chapters explain modern cryptographic systems, like RSA and AES, and the iternet systems that use them, PGP, SSL/TSL/ IPsec, and X.509. It also discusses common pitfalls, such as man-in-the-middle attack, authentication, key distribution, and replay attacks.

[Christian]

A very good introduction to cryptography principles