This volume is based on a course held several times, and
again in 1993, at the ESAT Laboratorium of the Department of
Electrical Engineering at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
in Belgium. These courses are intended for both researchers
in computer security and cryptography and for practitioners
in industry and government.
The contributors of the 1991 course were invited to submit
revised and updated versions of their papers for inclusion
in a book. This volume is the final result; it is well-
balanced between basic theory and real life applications,
between mathematical background and juridical aspects, and
between technical developments and standardization issues.
Some of the topics are public key cryptography, hash
functions, secure protocols, digital signatures, security
architectures, network security, and data encryption
standards (DES).