Handbook of Applied Cryptography 1996 -A.J. Menezes/P.C. van Oorschot/S.A. Vanstone

This book is intended as a reference for professional cryptographers, presenting the techniques and algorithms of greatest interest to the current practitioner, along with the supporting motivation and background material. It also provides a comprehensive source from which to learn cryptography, serving both students and instructors. In addition, the rigorous treatment, breadth, and extensive bibliographic material should make it an important reference for research professionals.Our goal was to assimilate the existing cryptographic knowledge of industrial interest into one consistent, self-contained volume accessible to engineers in practice, to computer scientists and mathematicians in academia, and to motivated non-specialists with a strong desire to learn cryptography.

Such a task is beyond the scope of each of the following: research papers, which by nature focus on narrow topics using very specialized (and often non-standard) terminology; survey papers, which typically address, at most, a small number of major topics at a high level; and (regretably also) most books, due to the fact that many book authors lack either practical experience or familiarity with the research literature or both. Our intent was to provide a detailed presentation of those areas of cryptography which we have found to be of greatest practical utility in our own industrial experience, while maintaining a sufficiently formal approach to be suitable both as a trustworthy reference for those whose primary interest is further research, and to provide a solid foundation for students and others first learning the subject.Throughout each chapter, we emphasize the relationship between various aspects of cryptography. Background sections commence most chapters, providing a framework and perspective for the techniques which follow. Computer source code (e.g. C code) for algorithms has been intentionally omitted, in favor of algorithms specified in sufficient detail to allow direct implementation without consulting secondary references. We believe this style of presentation allows a better understanding of how algorithms actually work, while at the same time avoiding low-level implementation-specific constructs of various currently-popular programming languages.The presentation also strongly delineates what has been established as fact (by mathematical arguments) from what is simply current conjecture. To avoid obscuring the very applied nature of the subject, rigorous proofs of correctness are in most cases omitted; however, references given in the Notes section at the end of each chapter indicate the original or recommended sources for these results. The trailing Notes sections also provide information (quite detailed in places) on various additional techniques not addressed in the main text, and provide a survey of research activities and theoretical results; references again indicate where readers may pursue particular aspects in greater depth. Needless to say, many results, and indeed some entire research areas, have been given far less attention than they warrant, or have been omitted entirely due to lack of space; we apologize in advance for such major omissions, and hope that the most significant of these are brought to our attention.Each chapter was written to provide a self-contained treatment of one major topic. Collectively, however, the chapters have been designed and carefully integrated to be entirely complementary with respect to definitions, terminology, and notation. Furthermore, there is essentially no duplication of material across chapters; instead, appropriate cross-chapter references are provided where relevant.While it is not intended that this book be read linearly from front to back, the material has been arranged so that doing so has some merit. Two primary goals motivated by the "handbook" nature of this project were to allow easy access to stand-alone results, and to allow results and algorithms to be easily referenced (e.g., for discussion or subsequent cross-reference).
Book Link:
http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/