Cryptology - how to crack it

Cryptology is here to stay.

Cryptology is an ancient discipline that was seriously developed from the mid 1970’s. It began with the development of the DES algorithm, followed shortly thereafter by the concept of public-key cryptology; this eventually gave way to the development of the RSA system.

News of the developments circled the globe, and researchers worldwide became interested in the subject. In 1981, the first cryptology conference, Crypto, was held in California, USA, and has been held there in August every year since.

The Europeans joined the party with the organisation of Eurocrypt, which has been held each spring since 1982.

Cryptology, and particularly public-key cryptology, is based on advanced discrete mathematics, such as Euclid's algorithms, the Chinese remainder theorem, Fermat's little theorem and Euler's phi function. Today, cryptology is an established discipline and the subject is taught at universities around the world.

This book is based on the author’s lecture notes, written for courses taught at the Technical University of Denmark, DTU, since 2001.

Lars Ramkilde Knudsen has been a professor since 1999, and is currently one of the leading cryptologists in Denmark.