Combinatorial Designs for Authentication and Secrecy Codes

Book excerpt: Combinatorial Designs for Authentication and Secrecy Codes is a succinct in-depth review and tutorial of a subject that promises to lead to major advances in computer and communication security. This monograph provides a tutorial on combinatorial designs, which gives an overview of the theory. Furthermore, the application of combinatorial designs to authentication and secrecy codes is described in depth. This close relationship of designs with cryptography and information security was first revealed in Shannon's seminal paper on secrecy systems. We bring together in one source foundational and current contributions concerning design-theoretic constructions and characterizations of authentication and secrecy codes.