Cryptography and cryptographic protocols

Abstract.

We survey the paradigms, approaches and techniques used to conceptualize, define and provide solutions to natural cryptographic problems. We start by presenting some of the central tools (e.g., computational difficulty, pseudorandomness, and zero-knowledge proofs), and next turn to the treatment of encryption and signature schemes. We conclude with an extensive treatment of secure cryptographic protocols both when executed in a stand-alone manner and when many sessions of various protocols are concurrently executed and controlled by an adversary.

The survey is intended for researchers in distributed computing, and assumes no prior familiarity with cryptography.