// Alternatives
Alternatives to La science du secret
Books in our catalog with overlapping topics and a similar reading level to La science du secret. If La science du secret is the wrong fit at intermediate level, start here.
01 · 2024
Serious Cryptography
Jean-Philippe Aumasson's working introduction to modern cryptography, written for engineers who need both intuition and enough mathematical depth to evaluate the choices a library is making for them.
Intermediate5/5Jean-Philippe Aumasson02 · 2026
Maîtriser la cryptographie d'aujourd'hui et de demain
A cryptography engineer specializing in information-system security mechanisms, who also teaches the subject, builds from cryptography's mathematical foundations up to today's post-quantum standards.
Intermediate4/5Mbaye Ngom03 · 2010
Understanding Cryptography
A genuinely teachable intro to modern cryptography that derives the math instead of hand-waving it, covering symmetric and public-key primitives without drowning you in proofs.
Intermediate4/5Christof Paar, Jan Pelzl04 · 2015
Sécurité informatique
A rigorous academic course on the foundations of security — cryptography, authentication, access control — with corrected exercises, from a team of well-known French and Swiss cryptographers.
Advanced4/5Gildas Avoine, Pascal Junod, Philippe Oechslin, Sylvain Pasini05 · 2023
Exercices et problèmes de cryptographie
A rigorous problem book for learning cryptography — over 150 corrected exercises with course summaries, for L3/master/engineering students — by a French academic cryptographer.
Advanced3/5Damien Vergnaud06 · 2021
Real-World Cryptography
David Wong's hands-on tour of the cryptographic primitives, protocols and pitfalls that show up in actual production systems, with deliberate attention to TLS, Noise, modern AEAD, and post-quantum.
Intermediate5/5David Wong07 · 1999
The Code Book
A narrative history of cryptography from Caesar ciphers to public-key, told through the people and the wars that turned on broken codes. Still the best on-ramp to why crypto matters.
Beginner5/5Simon Singh08 · 2023
Codebreaking
Elonka Dunin and Klaus Schmeh teach classical cryptanalysis through real, unsolved ciphers, from 19th-century newspaper personal ads to wartime telegrams, using free tools like CrypTool 2.
Beginner4/5Elonka Dunin, Klaus Schmeh09 · 2023
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing
Five famous hacks used as a way into the deeper question of why software is insecure at all, written by a Yale law professor who learned to code to write it. More a history and theory of vulnerability than a how-to.
Beginner4/5Scott J. Shapiro10 · 2018
Social Engineering
Christopher Hadnagy's broad procedural reference on social engineering as a discipline — recon, pretexting, elicitation, microexpressions, and the structured engagement model his consultancy operationalized.
Intermediate4/5Christopher Hadnagy