Bibliography of cryptography


Books on cryptography have been published sporadically and with variable quality for a long time. This is despite the paradox that secrecy is of the essence in sending confidential messages – see Kerckhoffs' principle.
In contrast, the revolutions in cryptography and secure communications since the 1970s are covered in the available literature.

Early history

The earliest known book on cryptography was an ancient work, now lost, but referred to by the ancient roman grammarian Aulus Gellius. He mentioned that an earlier grammarian named Probus wrote a book on the subject and that the book mentioned Julius Caesar's use of rudimentary cryptograms during his rule. The next work that we know of was Steganographia, sive Ars concealendi ''--'' three volumes written by Johannes Trithemius. Though the books were about cryptography, he concealed this in mystical language which the Catholic Church mistook for black magic. It banned the work, listing it in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Many writers claimed to have invented unbreakable ciphers. None were, though it sometimes took a long while to establish this.
In the 19th century, the general standard improved somewhat. Colonel Parker Hitt and William Friedman in the early 20th century also wrote books on cryptography. These authors, and others, mostly abandoned any mystical or magical tone.

Open literature versus classified literature

With the invention of radio, much of military communications went wireless, allowing the possibility of enemy interception much more readily than tapping into a landline. This increased the need to protect communications. By the end of World War I, cryptography and its literature began to be officially limited. One exception was the 1931 book The American Black Chamber by Herbert Yardley, which gave some insight into American cryptologic success stories, including the Zimmermann telegram and the breaking of Japanese codes during the Washington Naval Conference.

List

Overview of cryptography

  • Bertram, Linda A. / Dooble, Gunther van / et al. : Nomenclatura: Encyclopedia of modern Cryptography and Internet Security - From AutoCrypt and Exponential Encryption to Zero-Knowledge-Proof Keys, 2019,.
  • Piper, Fred and Sean Murphy, Cryptography : A Very Short Introduction This book outlines the major goals, uses, methods, and developments in cryptography.

    Significant books

Significant books on cryptography include:
  • Aumasson, Jean-Philippe, Serious Cryptography: A Practical Introduction to Modern Encryption. No Starch Press, 2017,. Presents modern cryptography in a readable way, suitable for practitioners, software engineers, and others who want to learn practice-oriented cryptography. Each chapter includes a discussion of common implementation mistakes using real-world examples and details what could go wrong and how to avoid these pitfalls.
  • Aumasson, Jean-Philippe, Crypto Dictionary: 500 Tasty Tidbits for the Curious Cryptographer. No Starch Press, 2021,. Ultimate desktop dictionary with hundreds of definitions organized alphabetically for all things cryptographic. The book also includes discussions of the threat that quantum computing is posing to current cryptosystems and a nod to post-quantum algorithms, such as lattice-based cryptographic schemes.
  • Bertram, Linda A. / Dooble, Gunther van: Transformation of Cryptography - Fundamental concepts of Encryption, Milestones, Mega-Trends and sustainable Change in regard to Secret Communications and its Nomenclatura, 2019,.
  • Candela, Rosario. The Military Cipher of Commandant Bazeries. New York: Cardanus Press, This book detailed the cracking of a famous code from 1898 created by Commandant Bazeries, a brilliant French Army Cryptanalyst.
  • Falconer, John. Cryptomenysis Patefacta, or Art of Secret Information Disclosed Without a Key. One of the earliest English texts on cryptography.
  • Ferguson, Niels, and Schneier, Bruce. Practical Cryptography, Wiley,. A cryptosystem design consideration primer. Covers both algorithms and protocols. This is an in-depth consideration of one cryptographic problem, including paths not taken and some reasons why. At the time of its publication, most of the material was not otherwise available in a single source. Some was not otherwise available at all. According to the authors, it is a follow-up to Applied Cryptography.
  • Gaines, Helen Fouché. Cryptanalysis, Dover,. Considered one of the classic books on the subject, and includes many sample ciphertext for practice. It reflects public amateur practice as of the inter-War period. The book was compiled as one of the first projects of the American Cryptogram Association.
  • Goldreich, Oded. Foundations of Cryptography. Cambridge University Press. Presents the theoretical foundations of cryptography in a detailed and comprehensive manner. A must-read for anyone interested in the theory of cryptography.
  • Katz, Jonathan and Lindell, Yehuda. Introduction to Modern Cryptography, CRC Press. Presents modern cryptography at a level appropriate for undergraduates, graduate students, or practitioners. Assumes mathematical maturity but presents all the necessary mathematical and computer science background.
  • Konheim, Alan G.. Cryptography: A Primer, John Wiley & Sons,. Written by one of the IBM team who developed DES.
  • Mao, Wenbo. Modern Cryptography Theory and Practice. An up-to-date book on cryptography. Touches on provable security, and written with students and practitioners in mind.
  • Mel, H.X., and Baker, Doris. Cryptography Decrypted, Addison Wesley. This technical overview of basic cryptographic components explains the evolution of cryptography from the simplest concepts to some modern concepts. It details the basics of symmetric key, and asymmetric key ciphers, MACs, SSL, secure mail and IPsec. No math background is required, though there's some coverage of the mathematics underlying public key/private key crypto in the appendix.
  • A. J. Menezes, P. C. van Oorschot, and S. A. Vanstone Handbook of Applied Cryptography. Equivalent to Applied Cryptography in many ways, but somewhat more mathematical. For the technically inclined. Covers few meta-cryptographic topics, such as crypto system design. This is currently regarded as the standard reference work in technical cryptography.
  • Paar, Christof and Jan Pelzl. Understanding Cryptography: A Textbook for Students and Practitioners, Springer,. Very accessible introduction to applied cryptography which covers most schemes of practical relevance. The focus is on being a textbook, i.e., it has pedagogical approach, many problems and further reading sections. The main target audience are readers without a background in pure mathematics.
  • Patterson, Wayne. Mathematical Cryptology for Computer Scientists and Mathematicians, Rowman & Littlefield,
  • Rosulek, Mike . The Joy of Cryptography Presents modern cryptography at a level appropriate for undergraduates.
  • Schneier, Bruce. Applied Cryptography, 2 ed, Wiley,. Survey of mostly obsolete cryptography with some commentary on 1990s legal environment. Aimed at engineers without mathematical background, including source code for obsolete ciphers. Lacks guidance for choosing cryptographic components and combining them into protocols and engineered systems. Contemporaneously influential on a generation of engineers, hackers, and cryptographers. Supplanted by Cryptography Engineering.
  • Smart, Nigel. Cryptography: An introduction. Similar in intent to Applied Cryptography but less comprehensive. Covers more modern material and is aimed at undergraduates covering topics such as number theory and group theory not generally covered in cryptography books.
  • Stinson, Douglas. Cryptography: Theory and Practice. Covers topics in a textbook style but with more mathematical detail than is usual.
  • Young, Adam L. and Moti Yung. Malicious Cryptography: Exposing Cryptovirology,,, John Wiley & Sons. Covers topics regarding use of cryptography as an attack tool in systems as was introduced in the 1990s: Kleptography which deals with hidden subversion of cryptosystems, and, more generally, Cryptovirology which predicted Ransomware in which cryptography is used as a tool to disable computing systems, in a way that is reversible only by the attacker, generally requiring ransom payment.
  • Washington, Lawrence C.. Elliptic Curves: Number Theory and Cryptography. A book focusing on elliptic curves, beginning at an undergraduate level, and progressing into much more advanced topics, even at the end touching on Andrew Wiles' proof of the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture which led to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
  • Welsh, Dominic. Codes and Cryptography, Oxford University Press, A brief textbook intended for undergraduates. Some coverage of fundamental information theory. Requires some mathematical maturity; is well written, and otherwise accessible.

    ''The Codebreakers''

From the end of World War II until the early 1980s most aspects of modern cryptography were regarded as the special concern of governments and the military and were protected by custom and, in some cases, by statute. The most significant work to be published on cryptography in this period is undoubtedly David Kahn's The Codebreakers, which was published at a time when virtually no information on the modern practice of cryptography was available. Kahn has said that over ninety percent of its content was previously unpublished.
The book caused serious concern at the NSA despite its lack of coverage of specific modern cryptographic practice, so much so that after failing to prevent the book being published, NSA staff were informed to not even acknowledge the existence of the book if asked. In the US military, mere possession of a copy by cryptographic personnel was grounds for some considerable suspicion. Perhaps the single greatest importance of the book was the impact it had on the next generation of cryptographers. Whitfield Diffie has made comments in interviews about the effect it had on him.