Cryptography is concerned with the construction of schemes that should maintain a desired functionality, even under malicious attempts aimed at making them deviate from it.It makes little sense to make assumptions regarding the specific strategy that the adversary may use. The only assumptions that can be justified refer to the computational abilities of the adversary. The design of cryptographic systems has to be based on firm foundations ; whereas ad-hoc approaches and heuristics are a very dangerous way to go.
This work is aimed at presenting firm foundations for cryptography. The foundations of cryptography are the paradigms, approaches and techniques used to conceptualize, define and provide solutions to natural security concerns. We will present some of these paradigms, approaches and techniques as well as some of the fundamental results obtained using them. Our emphasis is on the clarification of fundamental concepts and on demonstrating the feasibility of solving several central cryptographic problems.The most relevant background for this work is provided by basic knowledge of algorithms (including randomized ones), computability and elementary probability theory. Background on (computational) number theory, which is required for specific implementations of certain constructs, is not really required here.
Book Link:
http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/foc-drafts.html
