Review of Steven Levy's "Crypto"
Declan McCullagh
declan at well.com
Tue Jan 9 08:41:06 PST 2001
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41071,00.html
Crypto: Three Decades in Review
by Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
8:20 a.m. Jan. 9, 2001 PST
WASHINGTON --It took only a year or two for a pair of computer and
math geeks to discover modern encryption technology in the 1970s. But
it's taken three decades for the full story to be told.
Transforming what is an unavoidably nerdy tale into the stuff of
passion and politics is not a trivial business, but Steven Levy, the
author of Crypto, proves himself more than up to the task.
Crypto (Viking Penguin, $25.95), is Levy's compelling history of the
personalities behind the development of data encryption, privacy and
authentication: The mathematicians who thought up the idea, the
businessmen who tried to sell it to an unsure public and the
bureaucrats who tried to control it.
Levy, a Newsweek writer and author of well-received technology
histories such as Hackers and Insanely Great, begins his book in 1969
with a profile of Whit Diffie, the tortured, quirky co-discoverer of
public key cryptography. Other characters soon populate the stage: The
MIT mathematicians eager to sign documents digitally; Jim Bidzos, the
Greek-born dealmaker who led RSA Data Security from ruin to success;
and Phil Zimmermann, the peace-activist-turned-programmer who gave the
world Pretty Good Privacy.
Until their contributions, the United States and other countries
suffered from a virtual crypto-embargo, under which the technology to
perform secure communications was carefully regulated as a munition
and used primarily by soldiers and spies.
But what about privacy and security? "On one side of the battle were
relative nobodies: computer hackers, academics and wonky civil
libertarians. On the other were some of the most powerful people in
the world: spies, generals and even presidents. Guess who won," Levy
writes.
(Full disclosure: A few years ago, Levy asked this writer to help him
research portions of the book. For whatever reason -- perhaps he found
what he needed elsewhere -- discussions ceased.)
Throughout Crypto's 356 pages, Levy takes the perspective of the
outsiders -- and, in some cases, rebels -- who popularized the
technology. Although he provides ample space for the U.S. government's
views, he casts the struggle between crypto-buffs and their federal
adversaries in terms familiar to foes of government control.
[...]
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