This book explains basic number theory, polynomial mathematics, normal basis mathematics and elliptic curve mathematics. With these in place, applications to cryptography are introduced. The book is filled with C code to illustrate how mathematics is put into a computer, and the last several chapters show how to implement several cryptographic protocols.
The main purpose of the book is to help "crypto engineers" implement functioning, state-of-the-art cryptographic algorithms in the minimum time. With detailed descriptions of the mathematics, the reader can expand on the code given in the book and develop optimal hardware or software for their own applications. The book assumes the reader has at least a high school background in algebra, but it explains, in stepwise fashion, what has been considered to be a topic only for graduate-level students.
