“Coverage and clarity of material are excellent in this book [Stallings]. This is an appropriate level for first-year graduate students.” — Shambhu Upadhyaya, University at Buffalo
“Bill Stallings has long been known as someone who can explain complicated topics well. I’ve been reading his books since the mid-80’s and they are always well done.” — Mike Kain, Drexel University
“The text [Stallings] compares well to other texts in both theory and application…Stallings’ problems are the best that I’ve seen.” — William Bard, University of Texas
“This is one of the best textbooks [Stallings] designed for a combined introduction to cryptology and network security for computer scientists and engineers that I have seen. Mathematics coverage is adequate…virtually no mathematical background is expected.” — David Arnold, Baylor University
“The text [Stallings] does a very good job of giving a subject overview while including details of various algorithms.” — Edward Allen, Wake Forest University
Customer Reviews & Comments
OK, this book has received prizes and stellar reviews here and elsewhere but personally I didn't like it very much. First, the text and the exercises lack mathematical depth. There are entire chapters, such as the one on AES, which add hardly anything to the official standard, and the book explanation is often harder to understand, and especially more ambiguous than the official standard of the protocols it is supposed to explain.
On the other hand, it is a relatively "polished" book, without too many errors or typos. Most of the time, it gives gives enough information to implement the algorithms it talks about. But it certainly doesn't give you enough to become a cryptographer, or to evaluate the security of a new algorithm, or things like that.
