Foundations of Cryptography: Volume 1, Basic Tools

Book excerpt: Cryptography is concerned with the conceptualization, definition and construction of computing systems that address security concerns. This book presents a rigorous and systematic treatment of the foundational issues: defining cryptographic tasks and solving new cryptographic problems using existing tools. It focuses on the basic mathematical tools: computational difficulty (one-way functions), pseudorandomness and zero-knowledge proofs. Rather than describing ad-hoc approaches, this book emphasizes the clarification of fundamental concepts and the demonstration of the feasibility of solving cryptographic problems. It is suitable for use in a graduate course on cryptography and as a reference book for experts.