Here are 60 books that Cryptography fans have personally recommended if you like
Cryptography.
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I taught myself to code back in 1994 while working the graveyard shift as a geologist in the environmental industry. My job consisted of sitting in a chair during the dark hours of the night in a shopping center in Stockton, CA, watching another geologist take samples from wells in the parking lot. A friend of mine suggested I learn to code because I liked computers. I don’t mean to make this out to be a “it’s so simple anyone can do it!” You need to have a relentless drive to learn, which is why I wrote my book, The Imposter’s Handbook - as an active step to learning what I didn’t know I didn’t know.
This book makes me jealous as the author has an incredible ability to communicate the densest of topics (Cryptography) in an engaging, wonderful way.
It draws you in and you find yourself transported to battlefields and war rooms of the past. I’ve always taken cryptography for granted - I type httpsinto my browser and navigate to a site and all’s well. I know things are reasonably secure - but why?
It turns out that RSA, the algorithm that underpins things like SSL and SSH, is a landmark of human achievement and did something that millennia of mathematicians and scientists could not: provide secure, end-to-end encryption. A wonderful story.
In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.
Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable…
I am a cryptography professor, which sadly doesn’t mean I spend my time breaking secret messages (at least not every day). I first studied cryptography simply because it was fun and interesting. It still is – but today it is unbelievably important, underpinning the security of almost everything we do in the digital world. I believe that developing a notion of 'cyber common sense’ is a vital life skill since so much of what we do is digital. A basic understanding of cryptography and its societal impact provides a superb foundation for making sense of digital security, so I’ve selected some of my favourite reads to get you started.
I always knew cryptography was political, but I had no idea how political until I read this book. Seeing the subject I am so fascinated by through the words of a political journalist was truly eye-opening. Steven Levy navigates a deeply fascinating period in modern technological history – the late twentieth-century battles between governments trying to maintain power and control over communications, and technologists who saw the fledgling internet as an opportunity to build a new world. Cryptography, which protects digital communications, sat plum on the frontline between these two communities, hence battles over cryptography turned into so-called 'crypto wars’ (although nobody died). Nobody who read this book was surprised with much that Edward Snowden had to say to the world in 2013 – Snowden was just reportage of the latest chapter in the same ongoing conflict.
If you've ever made a secure purchase with your credit card over the Internet, then you have seen cryptography, or "crypto", in action. From Stephen Levy the author who made "hackers" a household word comes this account of a revolution that is already affecting every citizen in the twenty-first century. Crypto tells the inside story of how a group of "crypto rebels"—nerds and visionaries turned freedom fighters—teamed up with corporate interests to beat Big Brother and ensure our privacy on the Internet. Levy's history of one of the most controversial and important topics of the digital age reads like the…
I love nerds. I’ve always identified as one and years working in the high-tech world of Silicon Valley made me appreciate their passion, dedication to optimization, and wonderful senses of humor. I once scheduled a meeting with a programmer and afterwards he said “this meeting wasn’t the complete waste of time I expected,” and I took that as a compliment. A lot of books and movies make nerds pretty and shiny and one note. The nerds in these books all rang true to me—they approach difficult situations with logic and humor. They’re complex and compassionate and the kind of people I want to know more about.
A nonfiction book about an actual nerd who stubbornly investigated a 75 cent accounting error and ended up uncovering an international espionage ring during the Cold War. As nerds do. Along the way, he invented many techniques still used in cybersecurity. It ought to be dry, but it’s funny and charming and it perfectly evokes Berkeley in the 1980s. I was a computer operator at Carnegie Mellon and my workday was very similar to Stoll’s. For me this book was a time machine to my early 20s. I could see, hear, and feel every scene. If you ever think that your nerdy obsessions don’t matter—this shows that they do.
Before the Internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive U.S. citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" (Smithsonian).
Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name…
I am a cryptography professor, which sadly doesn’t mean I spend my time breaking secret messages (at least not every day). I first studied cryptography simply because it was fun and interesting. It still is – but today it is unbelievably important, underpinning the security of almost everything we do in the digital world. I believe that developing a notion of 'cyber common sense’ is a vital life skill since so much of what we do is digital. A basic understanding of cryptography and its societal impact provides a superb foundation for making sense of digital security, so I’ve selected some of my favourite reads to get you started.
Most digital technologies crucially rely on cryptography for their security, but few are entirely built from cryptography. Bitcoin is – simply – cryptography. The idea that money can be created from cryptography is a little bit mind-blowing, even for a cryptographer like myself. Dominic Frisby wrote one of the first, and finest, books about the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin. He explores not just the incredible story of the founding of Bitcoin, but also gives an accessible explanation of how it works and what role it might play in our wider financial system. If you have let the term 'cryptocurrency’ wash over you but remain just a tiny bit curious, this book is your best route towards enlightenment. Whether you then decide to invest in any cryptocurrency is another matter altogether!
Following the economic crisis of 2008, the website `bitcoin.org' was registered by a mysterious computer programmer called Satoshi Nakamoto. A new form of money was born: electronic cash. Does Bitcoin have the potential to change how the world transacts financially? Or is it just a passing fad, even a major scam?
In Bitcoin: The Future of Money?, MoneyWeek's Dominic Frisby's explains this controversial new currency and how it came about, interviewing some of the key players in its development while casting light on its strange and murky origins, in particular the much-disputed identity of Nakamoto himself.
The defining event in my parents’ lives, World War II has always been in my blood. When I was growing up, it would surface now and again when old comrades came to visit or when we came across souvenirs from the war. My favorite was a carefully etched German map showing sea lanes in the Caribbean, exotic and somehow menacing at the same time. My curiosity piqued, I knew I wanted to be in the thick of history—which meant reading and writing about the war, getting my PhD in history, and becoming a Marine and an intelligence officer.
David was a pioneer. Before Codebreakers there was next to nothing in print about codebreaking. Focused on World War II, he introduced a generation of readers to a secret realm, inviting us to look behind the big green door for the first time. This generous and loyal friend alerted me to the need for comprehensive overview of American intelligence in World War II.
Codebreaking is the most important form of secret intelligence in the world. It produces much more and more trustworthy information than spies, and this intelligence exerts great influences upon the policies of governments.
I am a retired police officer who worked the streets and conducted criminal investigations for over thirty-one years in a busy city with Detroit as a neighbor. I handled everything from narcotics to arson and murder. Having lived the life, I truly enjoy a well-written crime novel, especially those inspired by real events. That is what I also write. I prefer crime stories where the protagonist is truer to life and doesn’t possess superpowers.
Dan Brown grabs you within the first few pages and holds on to you through the whole book. The pace is frantic and can leave you breathless at times.
There's a great character twist at the end but I was a tiny bit disappointed with the ending. The story went so deep into the symbolic and mythical world, I guess I expected more. Perhaps I just wanted more.
The Capitol Building, Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon believes he is here to give a lecture. He is wrong. Within minutes of his arrival, a shocking object is discovered. It is a gruesome invitation into an ancient world of hidden wisdom.
When Langdon's mentor, Peter Solomon - prominent mason and philanthropist - is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons.
It is to take him on a breathless chase through Washington's dark history. All that was familiar is changed into a shadowy, mythical…
I started learning cryptography in the early 2000s with books borrowed from my university’s library, and with information I could find online. Since then I’ve practiced cryptography for 15 years in a variety of contexts: as an academic researcher, while working on my PhD; as a cryptography engineer for software and hardware pay-TV systems; as a consultant for private and public sector clients; as a vulnerability researcher in my spare time; as a code auditor for cryptography projects; as a start-up founder in the domain of IoT security; and as CSO (chief security officer) of a fintech start-up. I live in Lausanne, Switzerland, and besides crypto I enjoy literature, rock climbing, and playing classical guitar.
Although David is a friend, I only recommend his book because it’s great, both in terms of content and presentation. Real-World Cryptography is today’s reference book about cryptographic tools and applications: Modern schemes such as the SHA-3 hash function and the Noise protocol framework, end-to-end encryption protocols, cryptocurrencies’ cryptography mechanisms, as well as emerging techniques like fully-homomorphic encryption and multi-party computation; Wong’s book delivers a practice-oriented, accessible introduction, enriched by many visual illustrations (including original comics strips!), and exercises (with their solutions).
If you're browsing the web, using public APIs, making and receiving electronic payments, registering and logging in users, or experimenting with blockchain, you're relying on cryptography. And you're probably trusting a collection of tools, frameworks, and protocols to keep your data, users, and business safe. It's important to understand these tools so you can make the best decisions about how, where, and why to use them. Real-World Cryptography teaches you applied cryptographic techniques to understand and apply security at every level of your systems and applications. about the technologyCryptography is the foundation of information security. This simultaneously ancient and emerging…
I started learning cryptography in the early 2000s with books borrowed from my university’s library, and with information I could find online. Since then I’ve practiced cryptography for 15 years in a variety of contexts: as an academic researcher, while working on my PhD; as a cryptography engineer for software and hardware pay-TV systems; as a consultant for private and public sector clients; as a vulnerability researcher in my spare time; as a code auditor for cryptography projects; as a start-up founder in the domain of IoT security; and as CSO (chief security officer) of a fintech start-up. I live in Lausanne, Switzerland, and besides crypto I enjoy literature, rock climbing, and playing classical guitar.
If you want to compose or play music, you need to know some basic music theory: notes, scales, chords, and so on. Likewise, solid cryptography knowledge requires understanding its foundations: concepts such as one-way function, pseudorandom generators, computational hardness, secure encryption, and zero-knowledge proofs. Goldreich’s books are the best starting point for those who want to delve into cryptography theory.
Cryptography is concerned with the conceptualization, definition and construction of computing systems that address security concerns. The design of cryptographic systems must be based on firm foundations. This book presents a rigorous and systematic treatment of the foundational issues: defining cryptographic tasks and solving new cryptographic problems using existing tools. It focuses on the basic mathematical tools: computational difficulty (one-way functions), pseudorandomness and zero-knowledge proofs. The emphasis is on the clarification of fundamental concepts and on demonstrating the feasibility of solving cryptographic problems, rather than on describing ad-hoc approaches. The book is suitable for use in a graduate course on…
I started learning cryptography in the early 2000s with books borrowed from my university’s library, and with information I could find online. Since then I’ve practiced cryptography for 15 years in a variety of contexts: as an academic researcher, while working on my PhD; as a cryptography engineer for software and hardware pay-TV systems; as a consultant for private and public sector clients; as a vulnerability researcher in my spare time; as a code auditor for cryptography projects; as a start-up founder in the domain of IoT security; and as CSO (chief security officer) of a fintech start-up. I live in Lausanne, Switzerland, and besides crypto I enjoy literature, rock climbing, and playing classical guitar.
One of the books that I open at least once a year, and which I always recommend to students and mentees. Security Engineering isn’t a book (only) about cryptography, yet one about a topic that a cryptographer should know well: security engineering, or the design, implementation, and testing of systems that must be reliable in hostile and adversarial environments. Cryptography is indeed often just a small, yet critical, component of larger security systems. A good cryptographer must therefore not limit themselves to their field, but understand the risks, practical constraints, and functional needs of the environment where cryptography is integrated. Anderson’s book is the undisputed reference in that space.
Now that there's software in everything, how can you make anything secure? Understand how to engineer dependable systems with this newly updated classic
In Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems, Third Edition Cambridge University professor Ross Anderson updates his classic textbook and teaches readers how to design, implement, and test systems to withstand both error and attack.
This book became a best-seller in 2001 and helped establish the discipline of security engineering. By the second edition in 2008, underground dark markets had let the bad guys specialize and scale up; attacks were increasingly on users rather than…
I’m just a book-loving girl working in a corporate world who’s sick to death of the inaccurate representations of technology in fiction. FYI, tracing a phone call is instantaneous, no need to keep that pesky murderer on the line these days. Technology is so ingrained in our daily lives and most people have very limited knowledge of what it actually does, so I became fascinated with the idea of using real modern-day tech in murder mysteries. I got so obsessed with the idea I decided to write it. No Sci-Fi of future tech, it may seem farfetched, but all the electronic wizardry used in my novels is real and accurately represented.
Ah, Dan Brown. Love him or hate him, he’s a paragon of the modern thriller. Let’s go way back to 1998. It was pre-DaVinci Code, and he released his first novel, Digital Fortress. For the time period, it was a unique idea. A woman cryptologist at the NSA gets embroiled in a high-stakes murder mystery and the only way through is to solve the code. There are a lot of issues with this book, primarily that the author couldn’t be bothered to check his work and misuses bits and bytes throughout the whole novel which makes the code-breaking premise ridiculous. But to be fair, this was 1998 and for a first novel, it’s still a fun ride. So, if you’re a Dan Brown fan or love a fast-paced easy read give it a try. If you have even a basic understanding of how encryption works you may…
A former National Security Agency programmer threatens to release a mathematical formula that will allow organized crime and terrorism to skyrocket, unless the code-breaking computer that is used to keep them in check but that violates civil rights is not exposed to the public.
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