FYS 146 Cryptography Fall 2010 What Next? December 13Th

FYS 146 Cryptography Fall 2010 What next? December 13th

Congratulations! You have made it to the end of the course on cryptography. We have talked about many diﬀerent ideas this semester, but we have only scratched the surface and there are many many more topics related to secrecy. I have compiled below a list of books, some serious and some not-so-serious, that I recommend you check out.

Fiction

• Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Probably the quintessential crypto novel. Alternates between a storyline in WWII and a storyline in current day, with parallels and discussion of the cryptosystems used all along. A great story and very well-written. But long. HIGHLY Recommended.

• The Company by Robert Littell. This is a ﬁctionalized account of a group of spies working for the CIA and KGB through the coldwar. The story spans 50 or so years, and has a wonderful cast of characters. This was also made into a decent miniseries last summer which is now out on DVD starring Chris O’Donnell and Michael Keaton. Littell has several other novels about spies, but this is the best of the ones that I have read.

• Enigma by Robert Harris. This novel tells the story of some of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. The movie, starring Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott, is above average as well.

• Good News, Bad News by David Wolstencroft. I don’t actually think there is any crypto in this novel, but it is one of my favorite spy novels. Set in contemporary London, it deals with two coworkers who are both undercover spies and are ordered to kill each other.

• Ratners Star by Don DeLillo. This is not the most famous of DeLillo’s novels, but I think it is the only one about mathematicians. It deals with a teenage prodigy recruited to help break some codes and . . . well, the less said the better. Much funnier than his other work.

Nonﬁction

• The Code Book by Simon Singh was the primary source for readings for our class, but you should certainly read the chapters we skipped.

• The Codebreakers by David Khan. Probably the most important and detailed book about the history of cryptography.

• From Silk To Cyanide by Leo Marks. The memoirs of a British spy in WWII, as he creates the use of silk in one-time-pads as well as other innovations.

• Crypto by Steven Levy. This book is similar in tone to Singh’s book, but focuses most of its energy on the public key cryptography era and battles for privacy between the government and hackers. We read the excerpt about the Clipper Chip in class. • Body of Secrets by James Bamford. This is one of the best books about the National Security Agency. Goes into detail both about the history of the NSA, many events it has dealt with in the last century, and what exactly it does.

• Privacy on The Line by Whit Diﬃe and Susan Landau. I’ve mentioned it before, but this is a fascinating discussion of the history of privacy as well as Diﬃe and Landau’s take on issues we currently face.

• Beyond Fear or Secrets and Lies by Bruce Schneier. Schneier is a mathematician turned cryptographer turned security analyst who now thinks much more broadly about issues like airport security. These books put his expertise to good use in a series of entertaining anecdotes and analysis.

• Spycraft by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton is a book all about the CIA’s spytechs, discussing gadgets used in the ﬁeld to disguise people, eavesdrop, break codes, and all those other cool things James Bond does.

• The Pleasures of Counting by TW Korner. This is a beautifully written book about several diﬀerent topics in math and the history of math, but it contain a nice section on World War II era cryptography and cryptanalysis.

Technical

• A Friendly Introduction To Number Theory by Joe Silverman. A very readable number theory textbook, which will take you further in depth on topics like Fermat’s Little Theorem and how we use elliptic curves to encrypt data.

• Protecting Information by Susan Loepp and William Wootters. A great introduction to quantum cryptography. The second half of the book has some mathematical prerequisites at the level of Math 212, but much of the book should be very accessible.

• Making, Breaking Codes by Paul Garrett. A good textbook for an intro crypto course. A bit more technical than what we did in class, but deﬁnitely at an undergraduate level.

• Cryptography: Theory and Practice by Douglas Stinson. The math in this one is self- contained, but it gets into some technical computer details that are a bit tricky. Still pretty readable, but I recommend having a computer nearby.

And ﬁnally, if you don’t already read the comics at http://xkcd.com you should. They are very funny in a very geeky way: