Codes and Cryptography

By Dominic Welsh

This text unifies the concepts of information, codes and cryptography as first studied by Shannon in his seminal papers on communication and secrecy systems. The first five chapters cover the fundamental ideas of information theory, compact encoding of messages and the theory of error-correcting codes. After a discussion of mathematical models of English, there is an introduction to the classical Shannon model of cryptography. This is followed by a brief survey of those aspects of computational complexity needed for an understanding of modern cryptographic methods and the recent advances in public key cryptography, password systems and authentication techniques. Because the aim of the text is to make this exciting branch of modern applied mathematics available to readers with a variety of interests and backgrounds, the mathematical prerequisites have been kept to an absolute minimum. Problems and solutions are included.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198532873
• ISBN13: 9780198532873
• Release Date: July 1988
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

It codes well

I like this book very much. It is a no-nonsense, robust work which would be very suitable as a text for a formal course in information theory. The mathematics is well presented and is at just the right level to enable the reader to understand the subject without doing intellectual hand-stands. And as a bonus there are solutions to the exercises! The bottom line is this. A person who knows nothing about coding and cryptography but has a decent grasp of undergraduate maths will have a broad and practical understanding of most of the main concepts in these fields after reading this book. Well worth the money.

A great textbook on information theory and cryptography

This small gem caught my eye because of its publisher (Oxford, well known for publishing excellent textbooks on scientific subjects), and its simple title. 'Code and cryptography'. Nothing fancy or flashy. Having picked it up, I was pleased to see it's in the style of Shannon's 1948 paper which introduced the science of information theory. I'm especially grateful to the author for his judicious use of simple examples to illustrate complex topics, and when coupled to the clear mathematical language, this book is extremely effective at conveying the material.Be forewarned, it is dense and heavy, and requires you to really get actively engaged in the material. The presentation of theorems is very textbook, which is useful, but nothing is handed to you so easily. Definitely go into it with a ready mindset, and a good grasp of basic mathematics. However, if you step up to it, it can be a very worthwhile exercise. The book's small size hides its power. Highly reccomended.