Cryptosystems Journal animated header graphic
Please note the new "Curated Cryptology Compendium" (in the menu above)
which has links to 750+ free downloadable PDF's (48,000+ pages!) & a lot more!
 

Introduction to Cryptosystems Journal

Cryptosystems Journal was a unique international journal (subscribers in 26 countries) dedicated to the implementation of cryptographic systems (key generation, encryption, decryption) on Personal Computers for the purpose of general scientific, mathematical, engineering, political, and computer science education and research.
 
Cryptosystems Journal was published during the years 1988 - 1999, overlapping with the First Crypto War: Considerable effort has been expended to make the articles and computer programs as tutorial, pragmatic, exciting, and easy to understand as possible. The journal explains and shows the fundamental concepts of modern cryptology which derive from various mathematical, computer science, engineering, and scientific theories.
 
While being tutorial, the journal also contains an abundance of advanced information. Indeed, Scientific American succinctly stated the journal's goal of "describing and distributing state-of-the-art cryptosystems for IBM PC's and compatible computers." While others focus on cryptosystems using small crypto-keys in the 56-bit to 1500-bit range, the journal contains and describes algrebraically-based cryptosystems which create and utilize megabit (million bit) crypto-keys!
 
Each issue of Cryptosystems Journal includes (originally on diskettes, later CD-ROM) program source code and executable programs which implement the featured crypto algorithm described in the text of that issue of the journal. Of course, documentation is also included, and the programs are commented. The five volumes total approximately 114,000 lines of program source code in 15 different programming languages.
 
The programs are written in a variety of programming languages because some languages are better than others in implementing certain types of functionality. Programs have been written in Ada, APL, Assembler, BASIC, C, C++, FORTRAN, Modula-2, Pascal for DOS, Pascal for Windows, PostScript, and POV-RAY. Each issue builds upon concepts presented in previous issues.
 
This journey began with my 315-page 1981 Master’s Thesis, "An Operational, Computerized, Galois Field Cryptosystem, with a Computerized, Cross-Referenced, and Annotated Bibliography of Cryptology" (300 dpi) (600 dpi) (page thumbnails) developed on a DECsystem-10 using FORTRAN and MACRO-10 Assembly. Its nearly 9,000-line hand-typed bibliography has been converted into Hypertext, which you can find here.

In case you can't tell, the original versions of the web pages on this website,
are all from the 1990's, with updates and additions during 2025-2026!
 
I recommend the LinkedIn Group "Cryptographers and Cryptanalysts"
(which, full disclosure: I founded in May 2011, and continue to manage).
My group can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3901854/
and is the largest cryptography group on LinkedIn
(now with 17,000+ members worldwide as of 2026),
and is the BEST because it is LASER-FOCUSED
on ONLY CRYPTOGRAPHIC topics!
 
If you are looking for more recent MATH-based cryptographic information:
"An interesting example at the intersection of Matrix Mathematics and Cryptography
(and how Artificial Intelligence can write programs)"
by Tony Patti, 20 July 2025 (Version 2.5, 186 page PDF)
My paper explores and implements Galois Field Affine Transformations.
Both Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini are utilized to create
working cryptosystems in six different languages: PHP, Rust, "C", Python, Java, Go (Golang).

If you just looking for the PDF downloads page, click here!

Volume# Issue & Date Title # of Pages Contents PDF Download View Thumbnails
Volume 1 May 1988: Number 1
August 1988: Number 2
December 1988: Number 3		 One-Time-Pad Cryptosystems
Cooper's Cryptosystems
Baconian Cryptosystems		 31 pages
39 pages
59 pages		 Overview Volume 1 13 MBytes (300 dpi)
14 MBytes (300 dpi)
19 MBytes (300 dpi)
35 thumbnails on one web page
43 thumbnails on one web page
63 thumbnails on one web page
Volume 2 December 1989: Number 1
June 1992: Number 2		 Galois Field Cryptosystems
The SUMMIT Cryptosystem		 123 pages
118 pages		 Overview Volume 2 26 MBytes (300 dpi)
26 MBytes (300 dpi)		 127 thumbnails on one web page
122 thumbnails on one web page
Volume 3December 1994 PEAK Cryptosystem 156 pages Overview Volume 3 90 MBytes (300 dpi)
287 MBytes (600 dpi)		 160 thumbnails on one web page
Volume 4February 1997 APEX Cryptosystem 274 pages Overview Volume 4 120 MBytes (300 dpi) 278 thumbnails on one web page
Volume 5March 1999 Crypto-Chat Cryptosystem 399 pages Overview Volume 5 133 MBytes (300 dpi) 403 thumbnails on one web page
Totals 8 issues (1988-1999) 1,199 pages 728 MBytes in 9 files 1,231 thumbnails