[1934] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Recommended coursework for budding cryptologist?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John R Levine)
Wed Dec 10 11:12:34 1997
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 23:18:18 -0500 (EST)
From: John R Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: John Brothers <johnbr@undefined.com>
cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19971210001315.0073f604@pop.mindspring.com>
> She has a strong overall math background - are there any math courses
> other than Numerical Analysis that would provide her with a stronger foundation
> for further study of crypto?
I'd look for theory of computation, analysis of algorithms, computability,
and stuff like that, much of which may show up as computer science rather
than math courses. The math classes I took that had the most applicability
to crypto were abstract algebra (groups, rings, and the like), and symbolic
logic, up through Turing machines.
Numerical analysis actually isn't all that applicable to crypto since it's
mostly involved with numerical approximations to physical processes. Crypto
problems tend not to involve rounding errors.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner
Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47
