Personal Encryption Clearly Explained

Many years ago, when atomic testing was in full swing in the New Mexico desert, The New Yorker ran a cartoon showing two indians exchanging smoke signals when a giant mushroom cloud appeared over the horizon. The caption was one of the indians saying, "I wish I had said that!".I felt that way when I read PERSONAL ENCRYPTION. I found it a most enjoyable and useful treatment of a non-trivial subject.As a former IBM-er (I have been retired for many years, living in Southern Spain) I had the pleasure twenty years ago, when working at the Palo Alto Scientific Center, to meet Marty Hellman who gave us a few seminars on his work in Public Key Encryption. However, I found the subject matter reminiscent of my earlier experience with Norbert Weiner's "Yellow Peril" (Interpolation, Extrapolation, and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series), viz., I could follow it all and nod me head in agreement but, a week later, if I tried to explain the fundamentals to a friend at a cocktail party, I would get my tongue twisted around my eye teeth and couldn't see what I was saying. Since reading this book I can't wait for someone to ask about Public Key Encryption, although I must admit the chance of that happening here in Mojacar, Almeria is vanishingly small.