Re: student wanting to learn about cryptography...

From: Joe Peschel (jpeschel_at_no.spam.org)
Date: 07/31/03 

Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 08:22:35 -0000

"MacGregor K. Phillips" <mkp@topsecretcrypto.com> wrote in
news:bg8tig$li3oq$2@ID-201989.news.uni-berlin.de:

>
> "Alex Truman" <ncs8@email.byu.edu> wrote in message
> news:65ed954e.0307290934.1ad9b4f5@posting.google.com...
>> Hi, I'm a college student interested in learning cryptography. How
>> would you reccommend I begin? Is there a book out there you'd
>> reccommend or something? I know what a prime number is and I know a
>> few substitution & transposition coding schemes, but that's as far as
>> my knowledge goes. I pretty much need to start at the very
>> beginning.
>> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>>
>> Alex Truman
>
> If you have a knowledge of C and some assembly language the source
> code for some of the freeware versions of PGP is a good place to
> start. Do a Google search for PGP and you will find it.
>

Instead of plodding through PGP's source code, Alex would likely learn more
about cryptography by reading PGP's "User's Guide, especially the "Beware
of Snake Oil" section.

J 

-- 
__________________________________________
When will Bush come to his senses?
Joe Peschel 
D.O.E. SysWorks                                 
http://members.aol.com/jpeschel/index.htm
__________________________________________

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