TITLE: Number Theory and Cryptography
QUESTION [3 upvotes]: I am a math tutor at a community college, and I stopped in to ask one of the professors a question about crypto and he lent me a graduate level book on for a full year course in the title of this post. The book is way over my head, and assumes you already have taken elementary number theory and abstract algebra. I'm not asking for a crash course, but more of a syllabus for the crash course on which topics to cover so I can handle this book. Does anyone have any suggestions or questions about clarification? EDIT I am already strong in probability/statistics.
The book is A Course in Number Theory and Cryptography. Springer-Verlag publishing. Trig and snippets of calculus are how far I have gotten. Do I need to learn the entirety of the prerequisite classes or can I get away with certain chapters/sections. I assume certain chapters feed into crypto while others feed into different topics.

REPLY [1 votes]: Do you know the book by Wade Trappe and Lawrence Washington: Introduction to Cryptography with Coding Theory? I think it is not too difficult and very readable. There is a very large number of examples, some which use computers.
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