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WORLD-INFOSTRUCTURE > CRYPTOGRAPHY > INTRODUCTION

Introduction "A man is crazy who writes a secrete in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar." Roger Bacon (~1250 AD) The essence of human communication is not only the social behavior to give or get messages (of whatever meaning) but also how to give and get them, and to include certain people by excluding others from the process of informing. e.g. whispering is an effective way of talking to exclude the majority. What about ways of writing? Already some of the first written messages in human history obviously found special forms of hiding contents from the so-called others. When the knowledge of writing meant a privilege in a stronger sense as it is true today (in China for a long period writing was forbidden to people not working for the government), the alphabet itself was a kind of cryptography (that is why Catholic churches were painted with pictures explaining the stories of the Bible). Certainly the methods of deciphering and enciphering improved a lot during the last 4.000 years. In the meantime cryptography has become a topic without end and with less technological limits every day. On the one hand there is the field of biometrics, which is highly related to cryptography but still in its beginnings, on the other hand there emerge so-called infowars, which intend to substitute or at least accompany war and are unthinkable without cryptography. But there is much more to detect, like the different forms of de- and encoding. And very important, too, there is the history of cryptography that tells us about the basics to make it easier to understand today's issues. In the actual age of (dis-)information storing and transporting electronic information safely increases its importance. Governments, institutions, economy and individuals rely on the hope that no-one can read or falsify their messages/data as it is much more difficult to detect and proof abuses in electronic media than in elder forms of written communication. browse Report: Cryptography -1   Abstract 0   Introduction +1   Timeline Cryptography - Introduction +2   Timeline BC +3   Timeline 00 - 1600 AD      ... Epilogue  INDEX CARD     RESEARCH MATRIX  AT&T AT&T Corporation provides voice, data and video communications services to large and small businesses, consumers and government entities. AT&T and its subsidiaries furnish domestic and international long distance, regional, local and wireless communications services, cable television and Internet communications services. AT&T also provides billing, directory and calling card services to support its communications business. AT&T's primary lines of business are business services, consumer services, broadband services and wireless services. In addition, AT&T's other lines of business include network management and professional services through AT&T Solutions and international operations and ventures. In June 2000, AT&T completed the acquisition of MediaOne Group. With the addition of MediaOne's 5 million cable subscribers, AT&T becomes the country's largest cable operator, with about 16 million customers on the systems it owns and operates, which pass nearly 28 million American homes. (source: Yahoo) Slogan: "It's all within your reach" Business indicators: Sales 1999: $ 62.391 bn (+ 17,2 % from 1998) Market capitalization: $ 104 bn Employees: 107,800 Corporate website: http://www.att.com http://www.att.com/