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December 11, 2007

Handbook of Applied Cryptography Online

The Handbook of Applied Cryptography is now available online -- legitimately. This is a good book, and well worth downloading.

Posted on December 11, 2007 at 7:10 AM • 27 Comments

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Comments

john doe • December 11, 2007 7:45 AM

Um, if i'm not mistaking, this book has been available for free online for years.
I agree that this book is great, though.

ramanan • December 11, 2007 8:27 AM

It was online when I was in School, so it's been up for at least 5 odd year now. Menezes has a lot of his papers online as well.

Jose Celestino • December 11, 2007 8:54 AM

Yes, that as been online for a lot of years now. I don't know about the legitimate though :|

hggdh • December 11, 2007 9:05 AM

I think Bruce's main reason was to announce it publicly. Indeed the book (as many of Menezes' works) has been available online for quite a long time... but if you do not really plow in this field, you probably would not know.

Now it is out in the open. Good to have someone else -- read Bruce -- promoting this very good book. Rather heavy reading though :-)

Derob • December 11, 2007 9:06 AM

Not to forget that you blogged about this less then a month ago.

Well, OK, that was about an online course in which one of the first links was pointing at this book.

ziani • December 11, 2007 9:18 AM

Not to be confused with this handbook pertaining to Applied Cryptography, of course:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/273be8

;)

Dave Page • December 11, 2007 9:19 AM

Any chance of seeing "Beyond Fear" made available under some kind of non-commercial Creative Commons license? It's a royal pain to obtain in UK bookshops, and I can only afford so many hardback copies to lend and give to friends. I want all my friends, colleagues, political representatives etc. to read it!

Bryan • December 11, 2007 9:27 AM

I don't understand why people feel the need to point out that a post is old news or whatnot; regardless of the validity of the re-post. Unless you just love the attention you draw to yourself, what does it matter? Perhaps some of us have a heavy work-load and don't have time to follow every link of every post or read every security blog out there.

One of the good guys • December 11, 2007 9:54 AM

@Bryan: Bruce said that the book is "now available...legitimately." This implies that those of us who were aware of this site years ago may not have gotten it legitimately. By pointing out that this is old news, we are clarifying that it's been legitimate all along.

David • December 11, 2007 10:49 AM

I prefer my copy of Applied Cryptography, personally.

Anonymous • December 11, 2007 12:42 PM

> It's a royal pain to obtain in UK
> bookshops,

In French bookshops, it's a citizen pain.

Ross Anderson • December 11, 2007 2:03 PM

I second the nomination for Mr. Schneier to provide free on-line copies of all his books.

Anonymous • December 11, 2007 2:47 PM

"is now available online -- legitimately. "

"legitimately" refers to the fact that this is the DHS-approved version.

There are some subtle edits to bring it in line with current national-security best practices.

For example, the section on unbreakable encryption now mentions ROT13 instead of OTP.

If you have downloaded a previous, unapproved version, then it is your patriotic duty to get the update.

bobdole • December 11, 2007 5:25 PM

hahahaha, oh Bruce...you get away with this one for free because of how useful this autographed picture of you is for wiping harddrives.

Niyaz PK • December 11, 2007 9:36 PM

Good to see the book online. But I think it was online earlier...

Also, I saw an online version of "Applied Cryptography, Second Edition: Protocols, Algorthms, and Source Code in C" years before. It is still somewhere in my archieves.

World class books. both.
These are some rare peices of work which you will buy the original printed copy even though you have read some free(or pirated) online version.

Kanly • December 11, 2007 10:18 PM

> Not to be confused with this handbook pertaining to Applied Cryptography, of course:

Yes. When I saw the news I thought "Well Good on you, Bruce!"

Bruce Schneier • December 12, 2007 2:36 AM

@Kanly

"Applied Cryptography" is, basically, owned by my publisher: Wiley. I don't get to decide if the text goes online or not.

That being said, the text was distributed electronically as part of a CD-ROM thingy some years ago, and there are almost always illicit electronic copies of the book floating around the internet. Google for it.

Thomas Damgaard • December 12, 2007 6:22 AM

"there are almost always illicit electronic copies of the book floating around the internet. Google for it."

Wow :)

ilcomiziante • December 12, 2007 9:33 AM

Your books are very interesting.

I hope that your next book is freely available in the electronic version.
Legitimately, of course.

ciao

vlad • December 12, 2007 10:52 AM

> It's a royal pain to obtain in UK
> bookshops,

In Soviet Union, pain obtains you.

Anonymous • December 13, 2007 12:49 PM

Bruce, your book, AC, great, got in paper. Ever going to be a AC2, like after NIST Hash contest?
Would be great to read about all the updates and new whatevers, especially trusted computing, and how much a PITA real world crypto is, OS issues, hard drives rememberance, etc... Nice to be able to show the suits a 'legitimate' source of reputable info....Otherwise its just the internet...
Enjoy your blog.

darkuncle • December 13, 2007 10:23 PM

@anon (1249) - the sequel came out a few years ago and was titled "Practical Cryptography".

Kanly • December 15, 2007 8:25 PM

@Bruce Schneier: There was an implicit :-) on my post. :-)

keith • December 17, 2007 12:05 PM

Here is part of the copyright notice -- Permission is granted to retrieve, print and store a single copy of this chapter for personal use. This permission does not extend to binding multiple chapters of the book, ... .

So do I get to copy only one chapter? Or do I apply the copyright sequentially to each? (Of course, being careful not to bind them.)

justin • April 16, 2009 11:37 PM

In colonial American bookstores, it's a Thomas Paine to obtain.

chalam • June 12, 2009 11:53 AM

It's all time great book on cryptography, I never seen ever before this kind.

maj. werede abrha • May 16, 2012 4:56 AM

Right now I am in INDIA mhow I want to by
"applied cryptography" protocol,Algorithm & source code in C
i saw this your book plc how can I get; I will back to my country after 3 weeks tel me plc

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