Cypherpunks on Nostr, how did you learn cryptography? University? Hacking around? Online courses? Books?

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good question, i'm curious also.

I’ve been trying to get deeper then my current understanding of what cryptography does and into how it fundamentally works.

I think also using it in practice is an important aspect, for example with opengpg, omemo on xmpp(gajim is a good client to use it and see it). But in my case I lack the knowledge of theory parts and protocols.

University. If I had hacked around, I would have a much deeper practical knowledge.

I think you need to both study from university or books to get some broad knowledge (Shannon, Euler, differential, zk, etc) and also hack around with code and bits quite a lot, especially trying to break things, before you should call yourself a cryptographer.

I can't call myself that. I only did the book learning and don't have the practical experience to draw on.

Thanks for the advice. I’ve got a few high level books and a lower level course a Stanford professor was kind enough to publish online lined up. I suppose the only thing I’m missing then is some of the foundational cryptography papers and a few hands on tutorials.