Customer Reviews

Cryptography and E-Commerce: A Wiley Tech Brief

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I have just finished reading Jon's book regarding Cryptography and E-Commerce. This is one of the best explanations I have seen regarding these complex topics and issues. Mr. Graff presents them in a clear, concise, and humorous style. The book is full of pictures and figures which makes these concepts very easy to follow and understand. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the basics of cryptography without plowing through dreary technical texts. Cryptography and E-Commerce should be included in every technical library and also in most non-technical libraries. Anyone who uses the Internet needs to know this information.

The basics of the usage of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography are explained here step by step in a precise way visualized by clear drawings of a sender, (evil) observer and recipient. Starting with the simplest case and showing what's faulty about it, the author develops an understanding of why it needs message digestion, public and private keys and either Kerberos or a certification authority.

A small part of the book is reserved for some mathematical expostions which do not go very far. Two case studies, one awkward, one profound, round off the book.

The term e-commerce in the title is somewhat misleading. The book deals rather with B2B, the other subcategory of e-business.

A possible audience for the book are people like me, who are supposed to know what excatly a digital signature is and therfore cannot really ask someone.

I also agree with the above reviewer. Cryptography and E-Commerce is a great introduction to the essentials of modern cryptography in today's eBusiness. The cryptography concepts are wonderfully illustrated, and the analogies are light-hearted and very easy to understand. It not only includes many real-world examples, it also shed some light on problems associated with cryptography (i.e. Key Management Problems), that companies face today. There is an easy-to-understand section on the mathematics behind public key cryptography that does not require a background on number theory, as well as 2 case studies that really fortified my understanding of the concepts introduced in the book. There's more to cryptography than just the mathematics. I appreciate the fact that the author took some time to explain the business case associated with implementing modern cryptography. I really enjoyed this book and learned a great deal. Definitely a must -have on the bookshelf.

This concise book is very helpful for people who would like to know cryptography. The book uses a lot of diagrams to make complicate concepts easy to understand. One improvement the author may want to do is to fix the errors in the book.

The goal of this book is to provide an introduction to the basic concepts of cryptography to non-technical people, and to illustrate how cryptography can be applied in e-commerce applications. The author has succeeded admirably in this endeavor.

The first part of the book provides a gentle introduction to symmetric-key encryption and authentication, public-key cryptography, key managements and PKI. The detailed explanations are accompanied with intuitive figures. For the most part, the mathematical intricacies are omitted from the main chapters thus enabling the reading to grasp the important concepts without getting bogged down with technical details. For those interested in the underlying mathematics, the second part of the book provides a tutorial to some of the mathematics. Finally, the third part of the book describes two crytographic architectures designed by the author.

I highly recommend this book to the people with nontechnical backgrounds who are interested in learning how cryptography can be used to secure their applications. Once the basic concepts are understood, the reader can then proceed to one of the many available technical books on cryptography.

The goal of this book is to provide an introduction to the basic concepts of cryptography to non-technical people, and to illustrate how cryptography can be applied in e-commerce applications. The author has succeeded admirably in this endeavor.

The first part of the book provides a gentle introduction to symmetric-key encryption and authentication, public-key cryptography, key managements and PKI. The detailed explanations are accompanied with intuitive figures. For the most part, the mathematical intricacies are omitted from the main chapters thus enabling the reading to grasp the important concepts without getting bogged down with technical details. For those interested in the underlying mathematics, the second part of the book provides a tutorial to some of the mathematics. Finally, the third part of the book describes two crytographic architectures designed by the author.

I highly recommend this book to the people with nontechnical backgrounds who are interested in learning how cryptography can be used to secure their applications. Once the basic concepts are understood, the reader can then proceed to one of the many available technical books on cryptography.

Not surprisingly at how it is marketed, but many people thought that Cryptography and a PKI is the panacea that "fixes everything". It's not, and in fact the improper implementation or operations of a commercial grade PKI can have disasterous effects on the ebusiness it was built to protect.

This work provides just the needed reference such that most people who are that are implementing a Public Key Infrastructure, will understand the role of the PKI, its limitations, and in particular its audit requirements.

I strongly reccomend this text as an introduction to PKI's and how to use them.

TSG

The world of information security is full of complex inter-relationships between cooperating systems. A solid understanding of issues and possible solutions is a must for all levels of management. This book delivers on its promise of teaching security in E-commerce to readers of all levels. Though it is rich in content and full of excellent examples, it does not overwhelm the reader. Case studies are especially intriguing as they provide real-life examples of practical deployment scenarios. The humor in the book makes it very delightful to read. I highly recommend this book.

I was interested in cryptography but was always leary of trying to understand it. Jon Graff makes it easy and fun to read about while explaining a very complex subject. The diagrams and explainations were uncomplicated and concise. The math explaination was staight-forward and easier to read than I ever expected. The two case studies were the best part of the book. I gained a real appreciation for the complexity of using cryptography in the real world of computer.

It usually takes me a while to understand new things, this book was very informative and easy to understand. I now understand cryptography! Read this book!