Summary

This chapter introduced basic cryptographic terminology, concepts, and mathematical foundations that are required for understanding several upcoming chapters. To accomplish this, several simple classical cryptographic algorithms were reviewed as examples. In the next two chapters, we look more closely at modern symmetric and asymmetric ciphers, which form the basis of secure storage and communications, supporting privacy, confidentiality, authenticity, integrity, and nonrepudiation.

Beyond this chapter, the book takes an applied approach, focusing on specific Windows and .NET platform functionality. Therefore, we will not cover a great deal more on fundamental concepts. For further reading on fundamental concepts, please see the excellent The Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot, and Scott A. Vanstone, which is available in Adobe PDF and PostScript formats at http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/. Another useful book is Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier. For a wonderful historical (nontechnical) account of classical cryptography, you may want to read The Codebreakers by David Kahn.