Book Image

Cryptography Algorithms

By : Massimo Bertaccini
Book Image

Cryptography Algorithms

By: Massimo Bertaccini

Overview of this book

Cryptography Algorithms is designed to help you get up and running with modern cryptography algorithms. You'll not only explore old and modern security practices but also discover practical examples of implementing them effectively. The book starts with an overview of cryptography, exploring key concepts including popular classical symmetric and asymmetric algorithms, protocol standards, and more. You'll also cover everything from building crypto codes to breaking them. In addition to this, the book will help you to understand the difference between various types of digital signatures. As you advance, you will become well-versed with the new-age cryptography algorithms and protocols such as public and private key cryptography, zero-knowledge protocols, elliptic curves, quantum cryptography, and homomorphic encryption. Finally, you'll be able to apply the knowledge you've gained with the help of practical examples and use cases. By the end of this cryptography book, you will be well-versed with modern cryptography and be able to effectively apply it to security applications.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Section 1: A Brief History and Outline of Cryptography
3
Section 2: Classical Cryptography (Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption)
7
Section 3: New Cryptography Algorithms and Protocols
12
Section 4: Homomorphic Encryption and the Crypto Search Engine

AES Rijndael

AES, also known as Rijndael, was chosen as a very robust algorithm by NIST (the US government) in 2001 after a 3-year testing period among the cryptologist community.

Among the 15 candidates who competed for the best algorithm, there were five finalists chosen: MARS (IBM), RC6 (RSA Laboratories), Rijndael (Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen), Serpent (Ross Anderson and others), and Twofish (Bruce Schneier and others). All the candidates were very strong but, in the end, Rijndael was a clear winner.

The first curious question is about its name: how is Rijndael pronounced?

It's dubiously difficult to pronounce this name. From the web page of the two authors, we can read that there are a few ways to pronounce this name depending on the nationality and the mother tongue of who pronounces it.

Just to start, I can say that AES is a block cipher, so it can be performed in different modes: ECB (already seen in DES), Cipher Block Chaining (CBC), Cypher Feedback Block...