Foundations of cryptography--a primer [electronic resource] / Oded Goldreich.

Title from title screen (viewed Aug. 23, 2005).

Includes bibliographical references.

Available through the EBSCO e-book Collection, which can be found on the Davenport University Library database page.

Abstract -- 1. Introduction and preliminaries -- Part 1. Basic tools. 2. Computational difficulty and one-way functions. 3. Pseudorandomness. 4. Zero-knowledge -- Part II. Basic applications. 5. Encryption schemes. 6. Signature and message authentication schemes. 7. General cryptographic protocols -- Acknowledgments -- References.

Revolutionary developments which took place in the 1980's have transformed cryptography from a semi-scientific discipline to a respectable field in theoretical Computer Science. In particular, concepts such as computational indistinguishability, pseudorandomness and zero-knowledge interactive proofs were introduced and classical notions as secure encryption and unforgeable signatures were placed on sound grounds. The resulting field of cryptography, reviewed in this survey, is strongly linked to complexity theory (in contrast to 'classical' cryptography which is strongly related to information theory).