2. Net Etiquette
2.1. What groups are around? What's a FAQ?
Who am I? Why am I here?
2.2. Do political discussions belong in sci.crypt?
2.3. How do I present a new encryption scheme
in sci.crypt?
3. Basic Cryptology
3.1. What is cryptology? Cryptography? Plaintext?
Ciphertext? Encryption? Key?
3.2. What references can I start with to learn
cryptology?
3.3. How does one go about cryptanalysis?
3.4. What is a brute-force search and what
is its cryptographic relevance?
3.5. What are some properties satisfied by
every strong cryptosystem?
3.6. If a cryptosystem is theoretically unbreakable,
then is it guaranteed analysis-proof in practice?
3.7. Why are many people still using cryptosystems
that are relatively easy to break?
3.8. What are the basic types of cryptanalytic
`attacks'?
4. Mathematical Cryptology
4.1. In mathematical terms, what is a private-key
cryptosystem?
4.2. What is an attack?
4.3. What's the advantage of formulating all
this mathematically?
4.4. Why is the one-time pad secure?
4.5. What's a ciphertext-only attack?
4.6. What's a known-plaintext attack?
4.7. What's a chosen-plaintext attack?
4.8. In mathematical terms, what can you say
about brute-force attacks?
4.9. What's a key-guessing attack? What's
entropy?
5. Product Ciphers
5.1. What is a product cipher?
5.2. What makes a product cipher secure?
5.3. What are some group-theoretic properties
of product ciphers?
5.4. What can be proven about the security
of a product cipher?
5.5. How are block ciphers used to encrypt
data longer than the block size?
5.6. Can symmetric block ciphers be used for
message authentication?
5.7. What exactly is DES?
5.8. What is triple DES?
5.9. What is differential cryptanalysis?
5.10. How was NSA involved in the design
of DES?
5.11. Is DES available in software?
5.12. Is DES available in hardware?
5.13. Can DES be used to protect classified
information?
5.14. What are ECB, CBC, CFB, and OFB encryption?
6. Public-Key Cryptography
6.1. What is public-key cryptography?
6.2. How does public-key cryptography solve
cryptography's Catch-22?
6.3. What is the role of the `trapdoor function'
in public key schemes?
6.4. What is the role of the `session key'
in public key schemes?
6.5. What's RSA?
6.6. Is RSA secure?
6.7. What's the difference between the RSA
and Diffie-Hellman schemes?
6.8. What is `authentication' and the `key
distribution problem'?
6.9. How fast can people factor numbers?
6.10. What about other public-key cryptosystems?
6.11. What is the `RSA Factoring Challenge?'
7. Digital Signatures
7.1. What is a one-way hash function?
7.2. What is the difference between public,
private, secret, shared, etc.?
7.3. What are MD4 and MD5?
7.4. What is Snefru?
8. Technical Miscellany
8.1. How do I recover from lost passwords
in WordPerfect?
8.2. How do I break a Vigenere (repeated-key)
cipher?
8.3. How do I send encrypted mail under UNIX?
[PGP, RIPEM, PEM, ...]
8.4. Is the UNIX crypt command secure?
8.5. How do I use compression with encryption?
8.6. Is there an unbreakable cipher?
8.7. What does ``random'' mean in cryptography?
8.8. What is the unicity point (a.k.a. unicity
distance)?
8.9. What is key management and why is it
important?
8.10. Can I use pseudo-random or chaotic
numbers as a key stream?
8.11. What is the correct frequency list
for English letters?
8.12. What is the Enigma?
8.13. How do I shuffle cards?
8.14. Can I foil S/W pirates by encrypting
my CD-ROM?
8.15. Can you do automatic cryptanalysis
of simple ciphers?
8.16. What is the coding system used by VCR+?
9. Other Miscellany
9.1. What is the National Security Agency (NSA)?
9.2. What are the US export regulations?
9.3. What is TEMPEST?
9.4. What are the Beale Ciphers, and are they
a hoax?
9.5. What is the American Cryptogram Association,
and how do I get in touch?
9.6. Is RSA patented?
9.7. What about the Voynich manuscript?
10. References
10.1. Books on history and classical methods
10.2. Books on modern methods
10.3. Survey articles
10.4. Reference articles
10.5. Journals, conference proceedings
10.6. Other
10.7. How may one obtain copies of FIPS and
ANSI standards cited herein?
10.8. Electronic sources
10.9. RFCs (available from [FTPRF])
10.10. Related newsgroups