Primer on Post-Quantum Cryptography

A Primer on Post-Quantum Cryptography is intended to be the reader’s first book on this important topic. The author presents the essential concepts by choosing a representative sample of useful cryptographic schemes to illustrate the most important design techniques. He includes the historical development and motivation for these schemes. Some of the most relevant possible attacks (using classical algorithms) against these schemes are covered.

Post-quantum cryptography is a very active area, in part due to ongoing standardization initiatives by NIST. A great deal has been written on the topic, but almost everythingiseitherveryhigh-levelsurveyarticlesorresearchpapersthat are only readable by experts.There is almost nothing current in the middle for those new to the material.This book fills that gap.

The book gives detailed descriptions of the most important cryptosystems, along with plenty of examples and mathematical background. The goal is to make this topic accessible to a beginning graduate student or an advanced undergraduate student who is strong in mathematics. The book should also be useful to researchers seeking an introduction to this important and developing area.

Dr. Stinson also authors Cryptography Theory and Practice, fourth edition, (w/Maura Paterson). This book helped establish the undergraduate cryptography course when it was first published. The fifth edition will appear in 2027.

Dr. Douglas Stinson obtained his PhD in Mathematics 1981 from the University of Waterloo. He held faculty positions at the University of Manitoba, the University of Nebraska and the University of Waterloo, where he was named University Professor in 2013. Following his retirement in 2019, Dr. Stinson is a Professor Emeritus in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Stinson’s research interests include combinatorial mathematics and cryptography. He is the author of over 400 research papers and several books. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2011. Dr. Stinson was awarded the 2022 Stanton Medal by the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications. He also received the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from CS-Can | Info-Can, the national non-profit organization dedicated to representing computer science and the interests of the discipline across Canada. He is the author of Techniques for Designing and Analyzing Algorithms, CRC Press, 2024, and Combinatorial Algorithms Generation, Enumeration, and Search (w/Donald L. Kreher), CRC Press.