List decoding of error-correcting codes : Winning thesis of the 2002 ACM doctoral dissertation competition
Presents some spectacular new results in the area of decoding algorithms for error-correcting codes. Specifically, it shows how the notion of “list-decoding” can be applied to recover from far more errors, for a wide variety of err- correcting codes, than achievable before. A brief bit of background : error-correcting codes are combinatorial str- tures that show how to represent (or “encode”) information so that it is - silient to a moderate number of errors. Speci?cally, an error-correcting code takes a short binary string, called the message, and shows how to transform it into a longer binary string, called the codeword, so that if a small number of bits of the codewordare ?ipped, the resulting string does not look like any other codeword. The maximum number of errorsthat the code is guaranteed to detect, denoted d, is a central parameter in its design. A basic property of such a code is that if the number of errors that occur is known to be smaller than d/2, the message is determined uniquely. This poses a computational problem, called the decoding problem : compute the message from a corrupted codeword, when the number of errors is less than d/2.
An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications
Written by two experts in the field, this book is ideal for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers in all fields of science. It is self-contained: it contains the basic requirements from mathematics, probability theory, statistics, information theory, and computer science. Included are history, theory, new developments, a wide range of applications, numerous (new) problem sets, comments, source references, and hints to solutions of problems. This is the only comprehensive treatment of the central ideas of Kolmogorov complexity and their applications.
A Classical Introduction to Cryptography : Applications for Communications Security
This advanced-level textbook covers conventional cryptographic primitives and cryptanalysis of these primitives; basic algebra and number theory for cryptologists; public key cryptography and cryptanalysis of these schemes; and other cryptographic protocols, e.g. secret sharing, zero-knowledge proofs and undeniable signature schemes.


