Legal Protection: European Union

Within the EU's goal of establishing a European single market also intellectual property rights are of significance. Therefore the European Commission aims at the harmonization of the respective national laws of the EU member states and for a generally more effective protection of intellectual property on an international level. Over the years it has adopted a variety of Conventions and Directives concerned with different aspects of the protection of industrial property as well as copyright and neighboring rights.

An overview of EU activities relating to intellectual property protection is available on the website of the European Commission (DG Internal Market): http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/intprop/index.htm

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Timeline Cryptography - Introduction

Besides oral conversations and written language many other ways of information-transport are known: like the bush telegraph, drums, smoke signals etc. Those methods are not cryptography, still they need en- and decoding, which means that the history of language, the history of communication and the history of cryptography are closely connected to each other
The timeline gives an insight into the endless fight between enciphering and deciphering. The reasons for them can be found in public and private issues at the same time, though mostly connected to military maneuvers and/or political tasks.

One of the most important researchers on Cryptography through the centuries is David Kahn; many parts of the following timeline are originating from his work.

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Definition

During the last 20 years the old Immanuel Wallerstein-paradigm of center - periphery and semi-periphery found a new costume: ICTs. After Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism and Neoliberalism a new method of marginalization is emerging: the digital divide.

"Digital divide" describes the fact that the world can be divided into people who
do and people who do not have access to (or the education to handle with) modern information technologies, e.g. cellular telephone, television, Internet. This digital divide is concerning people all over the world, but as usually most of all people in the formerly so called third world countries and in rural areas suffer; the poor and less-educated suffer from that divide.
More than 80% of all computers with access to the Internet are situated in larger cities.

"The cost of the information today consists not so much of the creation of content, which should be the real value, but of the storage and efficient delivery of information, that is in essence the cost of paper, printing, transporting, warehousing and other physical distribution means, plus the cost of the personnel manpower needed to run these `extra' services ....Realizing an autonomous distributed networked society, which is the real essence of the Internet, will be the most critical issue for the success of the information and communication revolution of the coming century of millennium."
(Izumi Aizi)

for more information see:
http://www.whatis.com/digital_divide.htm

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cryptology

also called "the study of code". It includes both, cryptography and cryptoanalysis

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Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

EDI is an international standard relating to the exchange of trade goods and services. It enables trading partners to conduct routine business transactions, such as purchase orders, invoices and shipping notices independent of the computer platform used by the trading partners. Standardization by EDI translation software assures the correct interpretation of data.

EDI might become increasingly important to electronic commerce.

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blowfish encryption algorithm

Blowfish is a symmetric key block cipher that can vary its length.
The idea behind is a simple design to make the system faster than others.

http://www.counterpane.com/blowfish.html
http://www.counterpane.com/bfsverlag.html

http://www.counterpane.com/blowfish.html
http://www.counterpane.com/blowfish.html
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