Advances in Cryptology — ASIACRYPT’98 : International Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptology and Information Security Beijing China October 18–22 1998 Proceedings This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptology and Information Security ASIACRYPT98 held in Beijing China in October 1998. The 32 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 118 submissions. The book is divided in topical sections on public key cryptosystems elliptic curve cryptosystems cryptanalysis digital signature schemes finite automata authentication codes electronic cash stream ciphers cryptographic protocols key escrow new cryptography and information theory