[rramadass]

This article touches a nerve for me since i have always wanted to better understand (ever since exposed to books by Ivar Ekeland and Nassim Taleb) the relation and differences between concepts like Random, Probability, Stochastic, Pseudo-Random, Determinism/Non-Determinism, Chaos, Information, Entropy.

I would really appreciate it if folks can point me to books/papers/articles/etc. which explain all of the above starting from first principles.

Also are there any courses one can pursue to study the above?

[cratermoon]

Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, by Bruce Schneier

[tptacek]

Not a good book for this at all. I don't think I'd start with cryptography if what I was really after was stochastic processes; something in algorithms would be better. But a good modern starting book for cryptography is JP Aumasson's Serious Cryptography.