Question on the math behind Asymmetric Encryption

So I'm studying Cryptology with Eric Conrad's book and I'm trying to understand that math behind Asymmetric Encryption. The subject areas are factoring prime numbers and also discrete logarithm, alot of theory and I just don't see how it applies right now.

Eric does a pretty good job on explaining stuff, however I'm was wondering if someone could break it down even further.

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da_vato

To obtain your answer I think you're going to have to find a comprehensive cryptography book because all of the security books I have read don't get that deep in the weeds. Even on the CISSP exam they don't ask that deep you will need to know which is accomplished through what means like:
Eliptic curve is based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields

or

RSA is Based on difficulty of factoring a number which is the product of two large prime numbers

TeKniques

Hello,

Here is a SANs paper that goes into the math of Asymmetrical Cryptography:

http://www.giac.org/paper/gsec/2183/mathematical-underpinnings-asymmetric-cryptography/103707

uhclem

Well it really depends on what level you want to understand this?
Conceptual? Doing the math yourself? Writing your own code? Designing a new method?

The above SANS paper is pretty good overview.

There are articles that will explain the algorithms in more detail and books that will show how to write the code (big number arithmetic).

If you have 6 weeks to spare, I recommend this Coursera Crypto course which covers RSA about halfway in.

https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto

Dave.

JDMurray

You won't need to know math for the CISSP beyond XOR and ALE/SLE/ARO, so don't let it distract you from what you really need to study.

cyberguypr

I was going to comment along the same line of JD. CISSP just scratches the surface on many topics. The understanding that you must have for many things is very high level. If you really want to know how something works, that's fine, but things such as Crypto are better left untouched unless you have a genuine interest. As much as I was interested in that crypto Coursera course, the math kept me away.

JockVSJock

uhclem wrote: »

Well it really depends on what level you want to understand this?
Conceptual? Doing the math yourself? Writing your own code? Designing a new method?

The above SANS paper is pretty good overview.

There are articles that will explain the algorithms in more detail and books that will show how to write the code (big number arithmetic).

If you have 6 weeks to spare, I recommend this Coursera Crypto course which covers RSA about halfway in.

https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto

Dave.

Excellent, this is what I'm looking for.

For some reason, I'm really fascinated with the subject of Cryptology.

cfirsten

Decent article on encryption. Too deep for the CISSP exam but interesting nevertheless for the curious mind.

Performance Analysis of Data Encryption Algorithms