front matter

 

preface

As you’ve picked up this book, you might be wondering, why another book on cryptography? Or even, why should I read this book? To answer this, you have to understand when it all started.

A book, years in the making

Today, if you want to learn about almost anything, you Google it, or Bing it, or Baidu it—you get the idea. Yet, for cryptography, and depending on what you’re looking for, resources can be quite lacking. This is something I ran into a long time ago and which has been a continuous source of frustration since then.

Back when I was in school, I had to implement a differential power analysis attack for a class. This attack was a breakthrough in cryptanalysis at that time, as it was the first side-channel attack to be published. A differential power analysis attack is something magical: by measuring the power consumption of a device while it encrypts or decrypts something, you’re able to extract its secrets. I realized that great papers could convey great ideas, while putting little effort in clarity and intelligibility. I remember banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what the author was trying to say. Worse, I couldn’t find good online resources that explained the paper. So I banged my head a wee more, and finally I got it. And then, I thought, maybe I could help others like me who will have to go through this ordeal.

The real-world cryptographer curriculum

Where most of the bugs are

A need for a new book?

acknowledgments

about this book

Who should read this book

Students

Security practitioners

Developers who use cryptography directly or indirectly

Cryptographers curious about other fields

Engineering and product managers who want to understand more

Curious people who want to know what real-world crypto is about

Assumed knowledge, the long version

How this book is organized: A roadmap

About the code

liveBook discussion forum