This March I read through Real-World Cryptography by David Wong (Manning). I’ve been trying to learn more about homomorphic encryption, but I don’t have any formal background in cryptography. This was the perfect introduction to a wide range of cryptographic primitives (hashing, signatures, authentication, key generation and derivation, encryption…) and the delicate choreography of how to employ these building blocks to build protocols. There’s some interesting context on the conception of the textbook on David’s blog.

Of course, nothing replaces learning the core mathematics from the ground up, and toying with implementations. I envision my next steps will be a combination of trying some practical exercises, and working through a more rigorous textbook. But for the curious software engineer or those, like me, who want a launchpad, this book does an exceptional job.