Crypto: When the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy in the Digital Age

Cryptography has become one of the most important technologies in a secure digital world. It makes possible digital signatures, protection of confidential information, protection against tampering--or at least provides notification that tampering has occurred--and secure authentication of users. In an age when the simplest security breeches of highly visible dot-coms makes the front page of the popular press, cryptography and related technologies are making their ways into almost all of the software products we use daily.But it's easy to forget that only recently did cryptography become available for non-government users. Reaching this point was a long and hard battle with what used to be the most secret of government organizations, the National Security Agency (NSA). Bit by bit, researchers outside the agency made fundamental discoveries that eroded NSA's ability to control cryptography. Until finally the government was forced to come to terms with the digital age where the secrets could make their way around the globe in seconds. This is the story that Steven Levy tells. Although the book tends to portray researchers outside the NSA as skillful and lucky heroes, and those inside the NSA as pompous but brilliant ideologues, it's a compelling story. The book is roughly chronological, starting with Whit Diffie's independent discovery of public key cryptography, one of the major breakthroughs that made the field feasible, the story of RSA, the ill-fated Clipper chip, and concessions the NSA was forced into against overwhelming pressure.The author outlines the development of a people's cryptography and its collision with the U.S. government. The book is about privacy in the information age and about the people who saw many years ago that the Internet's greatest virtue was its greatest drawback: free access to information that leads to a loss of privacy. From a developer's standpoint, the story is interesting because it explains many of the features of cryptography as we know it today, making it easier to put them to efficient use. For example, what was the big deal with keys longer than 40-bits that the government restricted them from export? And just how much safer are 128-bit keys? Sure, we all have heard the number of hours or millennia today's computers take to break such keys, but why those specific numbers?As with most complex controversies, both the government and the outsiders make compelling arguments for their case. Cryptography has long been the province of governments, and wars have been won and lost on the success of keeping secrets secret. But in a demographic society, individual privacy is almost sacrosanct, even though it is not explicitly guaranteed in any of the documents on which the U.S. is founded. Crypto tells the story of how these conflicting interests have been sorted out to the current state of affairs.

This easy-to-ready short history by writer Steven Levy, who has written numerous articles for Wired, is a very well-researched volume on the human side of public-key cryptography. Levy has interviewed all of the major players: Diffie, Adleman, Chaum, Zimmerman, and others; he's done nearly a decade of research on the subject, and monitored the sci.crypt.* newsgroups. Clearly, this is an authoritative account of the short 30-year history of public key.The main theme of the book is how the NSA tried to stifle new developments by the researchers, placing secrecy orders and classifying their patents and papers. Throughout the book, as Levy draws out the characters, it's the crypto community vs. the government, until ultimately the cypherpunks win out.This book doesn't contain a single diagram; no photos, and no equations at all. So if you're looking for a technical introduction to crypto, look elsewhere; this is purely an informally-written account on the people behind the scenes.Five stars, for what it is; sure, Levy writes with magazine-style prose, but this fits the high-level view he takes on the subject. Most importantly, this volume was exhaustively researched and has the collaboration of all of the key players, which lends Levy's account great credibility.

Riveting true stories that are well researched. Levy weaves an intriguing account of cryptography's "eccentric patriots" and their dedication to the craft. It is primarily a story of people and the government politics that tried to ensnare them, not a treatise on ciphers and hashing algorithms. Explanations of cryptography are lucid, even if math wasn't your best subject.It's an excellent addition to American historical literature that we've sorely lacked after 50 years of Cold War stifled journalists from reporting details about anything that might threaten national security.Non-fiction literature buffs and researchers will appreciate the copious endnotes, glossary, and index. While it also includes an extensive bibliography, Levy conducted many interviews to write this original work.

If you liked Hackers, you'll love Crypto. It's written in the same spirit, celebrating cryptographers in the same way Levy celebrated hackers, and along the way makes a really strong case for private freedoms over government intervention. It's a great story, very newsworthy, and Levy really knows his stuff. And if you haven't read Hackers, try that one, too. You won't be disappointed!