Crypto - Hardcover

Levy, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670859508 ISBN 13: 9780670859504

Publisher: Viking, 2000

Synopsis

Cryptography -- the use of secret codes -- has traditionally been the province of puzzle geeks and government spies. But just in time for the Internet -- which radically alters the way we share information -- a band of outsiders triggered a revolution in this once-cloistered field. But this was a revolution that the government wanted to kill....Crypto is about privacy in the information age and about the nerds and visionaries who, nearly twenty years ago, predicted that the Internet's greatest virtue -- free access to information -- was also its most perilous drawback: a possible end to privacy.Levy explores what turned out to be a decisive development in the crypto wars: the unlikely alliance between the computer geeks and big business as they fought the government's stranglehold on the keys to information in a networked world.The players come alive here in a narrative that reads like the best of futuristic spy fiction. There is Whit Diffie, the long-haired Newton of crypto who invented the astounding "public key" solution; David Chaum, whose "anonymous digital money" actually threatened the global financial infrastructure; and "cypherpunks" like Phil Zimmermann, who freely distributed military-strength codes under the nose of the U.S. government. There is also the first behind-the-scenes account of what the secretive National Security Agency really had in mind when it created the controversial "clipper chip" -- and how the Clinton administration bungled the operation.Sure to appeal to everyone who kept David Kahn's sweeping The Codebreakers in print for more than thirty years and readers who are making Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, Mark's Between Silk and Cyanide, andSingh's The Code Book bestsellers, Crypto will soon be the new classic of its subject.

About this title

Review:

Author Steven Levy, deservedly famous for his enlightening Hackers, tells the story of the cypherpunks, their foes, and their allies in Crypto; if the National Security Agency (NSA) had wanted to make sure that strong encryption would reach the masses, it couldn't have done much better than to tell the cranky geniuses of the world not to do it.

From the determined research of Whitfield Diffie and Marty Hellman, in the face of the NSA's decades-old security lock, to the commercial world's turn-of-the-century embrace of encrypted e-commerce, Levy finds drama and intellectual challenge everywhere he looks. Although he writes, "Behind every great cryptographer, it seems, there is a driving pathology", his respect for the mathematicians and programmers who spearheaded public key encryption as the solution to Information Age privacy invasion shines throughout. Even the governmental bad guys are presented more as hapless control fetishists who lack the prescience to see the inevitability of strong encryption as more than a conspiracy of evil.

Each cryptological advance that was made outside the confines of the NSA's Fort Meade complex was met with increasing legislative and judicial resistance. Levy's storytelling acumen tugs the reader along through mathematical and legal hassles that would stop most narratives in their tracks--his words make even the depressingly silly Clipper chip fiasco vibrant. Hardcore privacy nerds will value Crypto as a review of 30 years of wrangling; those readers with less familiarity with the subject will find it a terrific and well-documented launching pad for further research. From notables like Phil Zimmerman to obscure but important figures like James Ellis, Crypto dishes the dirt on folks who know how to keep a secret. --Rob Lightner

Review:

"Gripping and illuminating." --The Wall Street Journal

"A great David-and-Goliath story--humble hackers hoodwink sinister spooks." --Time

"Gripping and illuminating." The Wall Street Journal

"A great David-and-Goliath storyhumble hackers hoodwink sinister spooks." Time"

"Gripping and illuminating." The Wall Street Journal

"A great David-and-Goliath storyhumble hackers hoodwink sinister spooks." Time

"

"Gripping and illuminating." --The Wall Street Journal

"A great David-and-Goliath story--humble hackers hoodwink sinister spooks." --Time

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0670859508
• ISBN 13: 9780670859504
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368