Items related to Crypto: How The Code Rebels Beat The Government - Saving...
Synopsis
Cryptography - the use of secret codes - was until recently the sacrosanct province of puzzle geeks and government spies. But just in time for the Internet explosion, a band of outsiders triggered a revolution in this once-cloistered field. In the words of Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig, the powerful mathematical tools they created were "the most important technological breakthrough in the last one thousand years." These mighty algorithms would solve the critical problem for all of us in the twenty-first century - how to talk to one another, do business, and keep our personal information private in a networked world. But this was a revolution that the spies and the Feds wanted to kill.
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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 title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherDiane Pub Co
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0756777887
- ISBN 13 9780756777883
- BindingPaperback
- LanguageEnglish
- Number of pages356
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