Basic Methods of Cryptography

This text covers the fundamentals of cryptography, the means of establishiing security in the storage and transportation of information. With the proliferation of computer use in business, information is being communicated and processed automatically on a large scale. Medical and financial files, automatic banking, video-phones, pay-tv, facsimiles, tele-shopping, and global computer networks all process highly sensitive information. There is a growing need for the protection of information to safeguard economic interests, to prevent fraud, and to ensure privacy. In this book, the author describes the fundamentals of secure storage and transportation of information. Van der Lubbe pays particular attention to symmetric (DES) and asymmetric (RSA) cryptographic algorithms, to methods for authentication, data integrity and digital signatures, key management, and to network aspects. The book will be of value to advanced students and researchers involved in data protection and information processing, including electrical engineers, mathematicians, business managers, system designers, application programmers, information analysts and security officers.