This book explains compactly, without theoretical superstructure and with as little mathematical formalism as possible, the essential concepts in the encryption of messages and data that require protection. The focus is on the description of the historically and for practice important cipher, signature and authentication methods. Both symmetric encryption and public-key ciphers are discussed. In each case, the strategies used to attack and attempt to "crack" encryption are also discussed. Special emphasis is placed on the practical use of ciphers, especially in the everyday environment. The book is suitable for working groups at STEM schools and STEM teacher training, for introductory courses at universities as well as for interested students and adults. The author Dr. Olaf Manz first worked as a research assistant and Heisenberg professor at the mathematical institutes of the universities of Mainz and Heidelberg. He then worked for many years at Siemens in IT product managementand knows cryptography from the practical side. He is also the author of the book "Error-Correcting Codes", also published by Springer.

This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Verschlüsseln, Signieren, Angreifen by Olaf Manz, published by Springer-Verlag. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

Autorentext

Dr. Olaf Manz first worked as a research assistant and Heisenberg professor at the mathematical institutes of the universities of Mainz and Heidelberg. He then worked for many years at Siemens in IT product management and knows cryptography from the practical side. He is also the author of the book "Error-Correcting Codes", also published by Springer.