Doing cryptography for fun

I kind of want to get into cryptography but don't really know where to start. I'm more interested in solving little puzzles (mostly) on paper or maybe even make a few of my own not too interested in modern cryptography computers use. Do any of you do something similar, I'm struggling to find resources on the topic. All I could find are a couple of sites that give you some substitution ciphers to solve, but I want to develop a broader understanding about what types of ciphers there are and how to recognize and solve them. Also general discussion on cryptography and similar topics welcome.

>>9006 >I kind of want to get into cryptography but don't really know where to start read The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh. Then learn some number theory and the basics of RSA.

>>9006 Hi, I'm actually working towards a cryptology PhD and I've a few books to recommend for you: >Invitation to Cryptology by Thomas Barr This is a decent beginner book. I took part in a sort of pilot class at my university and this was the book they used. It contained all types of students, all of them generally grasped the concepts well. >How to Think Like A Mathematician (Kevin Houston) This is a good introductions into the world of mathematics. You'll get a small taste of everything in here, but the important parts are the ways of thinking, specifically proofs and logic. >Introduction to Mathematical Logic (E. Mendelson) You need to know logic to understand proofs. >Book of Proof (R. Hammack) >How to Read and Do proofs (Daniel Solow) You need to know proofs to understand logic. (Pick one, they're both good.) Both this one and the logic one are merely introductions to their specific subjets, but you don't need to go higher unless you really want to. >The Joy of Sets (K. Devlin) >Elements of Set Theory (H. Enderton) >Introduction to Set Theory (K. Hrbacek, T. Jech) Pick one of these. An introduction to set theory would be extremely useful for cryptography. >Discrete Mathematics with Application (S. Epp) You'll need a grasp of discrete mathematics. There is no experience required to jump into this book, it can be your first book if you want, but you do need to at least grasp discrete mathematics. >A Classical Introduction to Modern Number Theory (Kenneth Ireland) Number theory is absurdly important, for obvious reasons. There are a lot of books, don't be afraid to read multiple. If you're wondering why I'm recommending so many mathematics books, you should just give up while you're ahead. Anyways, this is just the base line, and I would honestly go even higher, reaching towards college algebra, calculus, more number theory, elliptics, etc. But I'll stop here because I'm not creating a 4 year plan on how to become a cryptographer. Here are some more books for cryptography: >Cryptography: Theory and Practice (Stinson) >Applied Cryptography (B. Schneier) >Introduction to Cryptography with Coding Theory (W. Trappe) >Handbook of Applied Cryptography (A. J. Menezes) Another good thing is to take part in CTFs. They do have a lot of cryptography challenges, just focus on those. When you can't figure it out, take note of it and work on it. There are times when someone who isn't over a specific age will probably not be able to pick up on it (Like T9) but for the most part you shouldn't get too filtered by it. You can skip the book recommendations (and basically learning the scholar aspect of it), but if you don't you will have a difficult time reading over white papers for a long time until you pick up on things. Good luck and hail Lain.