

How to start learning crypto - nhangen

I&#x27;m a PHP hacker with front-end experience and a love of building new things.<p>As a result of the NSA&#x2F;Prism scandal, I, like many of you, have become passionate about helping to pioneer an open web. I&#x27;ve been dreaming ideas on this front for the past few years, but haven&#x27;t taken the time to jump in because well, I wanted to work my way to the knowledge. Now I&#x27;m feeling I don&#x27;t have time to wait.<p>So while I&#x27;m a decent PHP programmer, I don&#x27;t know much at all about security (beyond what it takes to build and secure a web app), cryptography, and other related fields.<p>I&#x27;d like to start this thread for people like me that are very interested and passionate about this, but don&#x27;t know where to start.<p>Books, people, tutorials...all of it is good info. If you had to start in this field today, how would you study?
======
taoquay
You could try doing the Matasano crypto challenges which don't require any
previous crypto knowledge and are a hands-on way of learning it.

There's also a MOOC on Coursera by Dan Boneh that is all about cryptography.
Next session starts on September 9th.

------
smewpy
From burritocop (linkdead): Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python
[http://inventwithpython.com/hacking/](http://inventwithpython.com/hacking/) I
haven't yet read the book but I've heard good things about it. It looks like
it's a beginning programming book that also teaches cryptography

------
runjake
For crypto itself, read Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier. It begins with
some history, high-level theory and pseudo-code and ends with C code and the
nitty gritty.

------
andrewcooke
see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6217908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6217908)
(particularly since another answer here mentions applied crypto).

