What is Cryptography?

Here’s a quick video explaining the magic you can do with cryptography.

If you are working with me, chances are that we stumble upon some cryptographic primitive, security proof, or privacy challenge. In order to have fruitful discussion, it is very important that you get an understanding of the general framework used in cryptography, how primitives are formalized and how to reason about security model, attackers and proofs.

There is a gazillion of good resources available on the World Wide Web on these topics. Some are more inspiring than others. If you wish to start with my top list of crypto resources, here’s the pick:

• The Joy of Cryptography, of particular interest to get started are the chapters on The Basics of Provable Security and Basing Cryptography on Intractable Computations.

• A Graduate Course in Applied Cryptography, a classic reference by the eminent cryptographers Dan Boneh and Victor Shoup. (The link points to the 2020 version, look out for more recent updates).

• An Introduction to Secret-Sharing-Based Secure Multiparty Computation by my ex-colleague Daniel Escudero