How is it possible for two parties that never met face-to-face to start sending messages to each other that nobody can comprehend? The remarkable cryptographic solution to this paradoxical problem is currently pumping inside each personal computer and is one of the fundamental ingredients that transformed the Internet from the mere academic tool of its early days to the information superhighway of today. The mathematics of Internet security is enticing and forms a sub-genre of its own kind: number theory, probability, statistics, combinatorics and many more are all orchestrated together for the solution of the modern version of the ancient problem of secret writing.

In this talk I will present an overview of the mathematics of modern cryptography and the techniques that employ them to solve fundamental questions in secure communication as the one posed above.