
Introduction
========================================

If you need to build the library first, start with :doc:`building`.

Books and other resources
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's a very good idea if you have some knowledge of cryptography
*before* trying to use the library. This is an area where it is very
easy to make mistakes, and where things are often subtle and/or
counterintuitive. Obviously the library tries to provide things at a
high level precisely to minimize the number of ways things can go
wrong, but naive use will almost certainly not result in a secure
system.

Especially recommended are:

- *Cryptography Engineering*
  by Niels Ferguson, Bruce Schneier, and Tadayoshi Kohno

- *Security Engineering -- A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems*
  by Ross Anderson

- *Handbook of Applied Cryptography*
  by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. Van Oorschot, and Scott A. Vanstone
  (`available online <http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/>`_)

If you're doing something non-trivial or unique, you might want to at
the very least ask for review/input on a mailing list such as the
`metzdowd <http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography>`_ or
`randombit <http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography>`_
crypto lists. And (if possible) pay a professional cryptographer or
security company to review your design and code.

References
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The :ref:`genindex` and :ref:`search` may be useful.
