The first part of this book covers the key concepts of cryptography on an undergraduate level, from encryption and digital signatures to cryptographic protocols. Essential techniques are demonstrated in protocols for key exchange, user identification, electronic elections and digital cash. In the second part, more advanced topics are addressed, such as the bit security of one-way functions and computationally perfect pseudorandom bit generators. The security of cryptographic schemes is a central topic. Typical examples of provably secure encryption and signature schemes and their security proofs are given. Though particular attention is given to the mathematical foundations, no special background in mathematics is presumed. The necessary algebra, number theory and probability theory are included in the appendix. Each chapter closes with a collection of exercises. In the second edition the authors added a complete description of the AES, an extended section on cryptographic hash functions, and new sections on random oracle proofs and public-key encryption schemes that are provably secure against adaptively-chosen-ciphertext attacks. The third edition is a further substantive extension, with new topics added, including: elliptic curve cryptography; Paillier encryption; quantum cryptography; the new SHA-3 standard for cryptographic hash functions; a considerably extended section on electronic elections and Internet voting; mix nets; and zero-knowledge proofs of shuffles. The book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students in computer science, mathematics, and engineering.

Due to the rapid growth of digital communication and electronic data exchange, information security has become a crucial issue in industry, business, and administration. Modern cryptography provides essential techniques for securing information and protecting data. In the first part, this book covers the key concepts of cryptography on an undergraduate level, from encryption and digital signatures to cryptographic protocols. Essential techniques are demonstrated in protocols for key exchange, user identification, electronic elections and digital cash. In the second part, more advanced topics are addressed, such as the bit security of one-way functions and computationally perfect pseudorandom bit generators. The security of cryptographic schemes is a central topic. Typical examples of provably secure encryption and signature schemes and their security proofs are given. Though particular attention is given to the mathematical foundations, no special background in mathematics is presumed. The necessary algebra, number theory and probability theory are included in the appendix. Each chapter closes with a collection of exercises. The second edition contains corrections, revisions and new material, including a complete description of the AES, an extended section on cryptographic hash functions, a new section on random oracle proofs, and a new section on public-key encryption schemes that are provably secure against adaptively-chosen-ciphertext attacks.

Locally semialgebraic spaces serve as an appropriate framework for studying the topological properties of varieties and semialgebraic sets over a real closed field. This book contributes to the fundamental theory of semialgebraic topology and falls into two main parts. The first dealswith sheaves and their cohomology on spaces which locally look like a constructible subset of a real spectrum. Topics like families of support, homotopy, acyclic sheaves, base-change theorems and cohomological dimension are considered. In the second part a homology theory for locally complete locally semialgebraic spaces over a real closed field is developed, the semialgebraic analogue of classical Bore-Moore-homology. Topics include fundamental classes of manifolds and varieties, Poincare duality, extensions of the base field and a comparison with the classical theory. Applying semialgebraic Borel-Moore-homology, a semialgebraic ("topological") approach to intersection theory on varieties over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero is given. The book is addressed to researchers and advanced students in real algebraic geometry and related areas.