Foreword - 1

Cryptography and networking are topics that have gathered much momentum in recent days. To unravel the hidden has always been a fascination for mankind. Hacking, which is a streak of such fascination, is a big threat to the digital world. Cryptography is as old as hacking and its importance in today’s world grows by leaps and bounds with each passing day. Prolific development in this interesting field has attracted academic attention and its versatility has made it mandatory for the younger technocrats to gain a fair exposure to the subject.

This book consists of 16 chapters, which give a holistic understanding towards the thrust area. The first 10 chapters focus on cryptography techniques and algorithms and the next 6 chapters discuss the applications of cryptography techniques in computer networks. The book starts with the wake ofcryptography and the pioneer ideas in the field dating back to sixteenth century and makes agile strides towards contemporary topics of interest in this exciting field. I record my appreciation of the authors for their meticulous work, which is a significant contribution towards the growth of the field.

Dr A. Vadivel
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Applications
National Institute of Technology
Tiruchirappalli