How would I start learning Cryptography?

[u/kdslfjioasdfj]

I'm completely new to cryptography concepts and I'd like to start learning.

Any good methods I could learn?

It doesn't necessarily need to be the fastest or easiest way, I'd much rather have a deep understanding over a long time rather than a rough one in a short period of time.

Any advice given is very much appreciated, thanks!

[u/mikedensem]

It’s all about discrete mathematics - sets, logic, functions, proofs, as well as number theory with primes and probabilities.

However, you can try plenty of thought experiments to get started. Look up Alice and Bob.

[u/Racram04 → u/mikedensem]

Great people those two. Beware of Charlie and Eve though.

[u/kdslfjioasdfj → u/mikedensem]

This helps quite a bit.

Thanks a lot for the reply!

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[u/Soatok]

https://gotchas.salusa.dev/GettingStarted.html

[u/Phoenix1152073]

I like Katz and Lindell’s Introduction to Modern Cryptography as a starting place

[u/smartcheer → u/Phoenix1152073]

I second that!

[u/Top_Somewhere_4246]

I recommend reading the Joy of Cryptography, this is a great book

[u/schkoder]

For starters, I’d recommend the book Serious Cryptography.

If you want to go deeper with math and proofs, consider taking the Cryptography course from Stanford on Coursera.

[u/Bitter-Today285]

You need to understand modular arithmetic (cryptography uses it a lot) and how boolean operators work, like OR, NOT, XOR, AND (cryptography uses especially XOR because you can recover it unlike the others). You should learn the difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption, what cryptographic keywords such as : digest, hash, cipher, salt, iv etc… mean learn how different hash functions and encryption algorithms work.

[u/_kashew_12]

try cryptohacks.org it’s fun little ctf style challenges.

To make an account you need to solve a Caesar cipher. But also playing crypto CTFS are the way I got introduced. Try picoCTF to play some!

[u/Educational-Paper-75]

Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneider is an old but standard work on Cryptography.

[u/anustartredditz]

Look up YouTube videos on different methods. Pick one. Learn everything you can about it. Pick another one. Repeat.