None of Your Business
"What have you got hide?"
"None of your business!"
That is my favourite lines from the book. The government (NSA) claiming if you knew what they knew, you'd agree that encryption is of national security. This is the main argument thought the book. The code rebels say it is necessary to secure bank transactions, privacy, and oppressive governments.
Here is my theory with only facts I got reading the book:
The NSA was probably less worried about people using encryption to encode their messages. The NSA already had the equivalent of RSA. Having civilians research such things freely probably put their own messages at risk of decryption.
Think about it. If you have RSA and it is secure by public keys and yet you still have the means to hide the algorithm that encrypts the message, you would have a stronger system. A secret algorithm adds protection in case there is any flaw in the security of RSA. Exporting crypto not only gives means for enemies to avoid surveillance, but allows foreign governments knowledge on how the NSA protects its own messages.
We finally got legalized encryption around the year 2000, but it was out of necessity of the Internet. That is about 22 years later. A time when technology has changed.
This book gives you a history. An exciting and descriptive history. I only remember PGP and key escrow while it was occurring in the 1990's. I didn't know the majority of the history that occurred in this book. This book goes over the history of the civilians, like Whitfield Diffie amd how crypto was brought to the public.
This is a lot of information crammed into the 330 pages. There are so many names mentioned you'd have to take notes to remember them. The interest does slow down in the middle of the book, but when you finish the book, you see it was necessary to tell the story.
This book is what would make younger readers interested in crypto. And it can be enjoyed by anyone interested in the subject. You won't see any math, just a paragraph describing the overall concept when needed.
This is a good read. If you stick with it through the long parts, you will learn a lot.
Good book, a bit dry.
Very good book that gives the reader a strong foundation and understanding of computer crypto.
I do not normally read books twice, but tried to read this one a second time. It was too dry the second time and after having the understanding I already had from school and the first read, I was not able to finish.
It is something to read at least once, although maybe a bit more dated now.
Good Intro History
This author and John Markoff are some of the best general writers that have written about the early history of home computers and various associated issues. Levy is superb in his books entitle Hackers and Artificial Life.
Crypto is interesting for me in a number of ways. My father was in the Navy for most of my first years of life, working in the career field involving crytpo communications and I was always interested in the subject even if I spent a career in the military working on F-4's. The book's history covers most of the years I spent in the military and the names trigger memories of conversations and classes about top but little known generals and admirals (like Admiral Inman) I had while earning a history/politicial science degree. It also brings back memories of Contra-gate with the players Colonel North and Admiral Poindexter (which have nothing to do with this book). Two of the books that Levy cites, Codebreakers and Puzzle Palace, were objects I spent many hours with during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Crypto is a fascinating introduction into the difficult dance that the government and computer/math geeks danced during the early emergence of computer encoding systems especially over the issue of requiring inferior products to overseas consumers. The brief snap shots of the early computer crypto hackers are fascinating. Levy has mastered the art form of providing bio snap shots and surpassed one of the masters of doing this, which was Civil War historian -- Bruce Catton.
Levy also provides a very introductory briefing on how the early crypto systems worked and the ideas behind them. He does not get bogged down with excessive details to provide that background.
Condsidering the House finally approved the 'bailout' bill today and imposed an excessive and overbearing government presence on the American economic scene, it is interesting that the Clinton/Gore administration was officially impending software companies with their export of quality products and the geniuses that worked on the crypto systems. Big Brother government has been around for a lot longer than many realize.
This book is an idea candidate for re-issue and updating.
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