Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
1: Introduction and Preliminaries
Part I: Basic Tools
2: Computational Diculty (One-Way Functions)
3: Pseudorandomness
4: Zero-Knowledge
Part II: Basic Applications
5: Encryption Schemes
6: Signature and Message Authentication Schemes
7: General Cryptographic Protocols
Fig. 1.1 Organization of this primer
essential to understanding the rest of the material. In general, later
sections may refer to definitions and results in prior sections, but not
to the constructions and proofs that support these results. It may be
even possible to understand later sections without reading any prior
section, but we believe that the order we chose should be preferred
because it proceeds from the simplest notions to the most complex
ones.
Suggestions for further reading
This primer is a brief summary of the author's two-volume work on
the subject (65; 67). Furthermore, Part I corresponds to (65), whereas
Part II corresponds to (67). Needless to say, the reader is referred to
these textbooks for further detail.
Two of the topics reviewed by this primer are zero-knowledge proofs
(which are probabilistic) and pseudorandom generators (and func-
tions). A wider perspective on probabilistic proof systems and pseudo-
randomness is provided in (62, Sections 2-3).
Current research on the foundations of cryptography appears in gen-
eral computer science conferences (e.g., FOCS and STOC), in crypto-
graphy conferences (e.g., Crypto and EuroCrypt) as well as in the newly
established
Theory of Cryptography Conference
(TCC).
