The 17th Century: The Invention of the First "Computers" The devices often considered the first "computers" in our understanding were rather calculators than the sophisticated combination of hard- and software we call computers today. In 1642 Blaise Pascal, the son of a French tax collector, developed a device to perform additions. His numerical wheel calculator was a brass rectangular box and used eight movable dials to add sums up to eight figures long. Designed to help his father with his duties, the big disadvantage of the Pascaline was its limitation to addition. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, a German mathematician and philosopher, in 1694 improved the Pascaline by creating a machine that could also multiply. As its predecessor Leibniz's mechanical multiplier likewise worked by a system of gears and dials. Leibniz also formulated a model that may be considered the theoretical ancestor of some modern computers. In De Arte Combinatoria (1666) Leibniz argued that all reasoning, all discover, verbal or not, is reducible to an ordered combination of elements, such as numbers, words, colors, or sounds. Further improvements in the field of early computing devices were made by Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, a Frenchmen. His arithometer could not only add and multiply, but perform the four basic arithmetic functions and was widely used up until the First World War.

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Timeline 1970-2000 AD 1971 IBM's work on the Lucifer cipher and the work of the NSA lead to the U.S. Data Encryption Standard (= DES) 1976 Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman publish their book New Directions in Cryptography, playing with the idea of public key cryptography 1977/78 the RSA algorithm is developed by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard M. Adleman and is published 1984 Congress passes Comprehensive Crime Control Act - The Hacker Quarterly is founded 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is passed in the USA - Electronic Communications Privacy Act 1987 Chicago prosecutors found Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force 1988 U.S. Secret Service covertly videotapes a hacker convention 1989 NuPrometheus League distributes Apple Computer software 1990 - IDEA, using a 128-bit key, is supposed to replace DES - Charles H. Bennett and Gilles Brassard publish their work on Quantum Cryptography - Martin Luther King Day Crash strikes AT&T long-distance network nationwide 1991 PGP (= Pretty Good Privacy) is released as freeware on the Internet, soon becoming worldwide state of the art; its creator is Phil Zimmermann - one of the first conferences for Computers, Freedom and Privacy takes place in San Francisco - AT&T phone crash; New York City and various airports get affected 1993 the U.S. government announces to introduce the Clipper Chip, an idea that provokes many political discussions during the following years 1994 Ron Rivest releases another algorithm, the RC5, on the Internet - the blowfish encryption algorithm, a 64-bit block cipher with a key-length up to 448 bits, is designed by Bruce Schneier 1990s work on quantum computer and quantum cryptography - work on biometrics for authentication (finger prints, the iris, smells, etc.) 1996 France liberates its cryptography law: one now can use cryptography if registered - OECD issues Cryptography Policy Guidelines; a paper calling for encryption exports-standards and unrestricted access to encryption products 1997 April European Commission issues Electronic Commerce Initiative, in favor of strong encryption 1997 June PGP 5.0 Freeware widely available for non-commercial use 1997 June 56-bit DES code cracked by a network of 14,000 computers 1997 August U.S. judge assesses encryption export regulations as violation of the First Amendment 1998 February foundation of Americans for Computer Privacy, a broad coalition in opposition to the U.S. cryptography policy 1998 March PGP announces plans to sell encryption products outside the USA 1998 April NSA issues a report about the risks of key recovery systems 1998 July DES code cracked in 56 hours by researchers in Silicon Valley 1998 October Finnish government agrees to unrestricted export of strong encryption 1999 January RSA Data Security, establishes worldwide distribution of encryption product outside the USA - National Institute of Standards and Technologies announces that 56-bit DES is not safe compared to Triple DES - 56-bit DES code is cracked in 22 hours and 15 minutes 1999 May 27 United Kingdom speaks out against key recovery 1999 Sept: the USA announce to stop the restriction of cryptography-exports 2000 as the German government wants to elaborate a cryptography-law, different organizations start a campaign against that law - computer hackers do no longer only visit websites and change little details there but cause breakdowns of entire systems, producing big economic losses for further information about the history of cryptography see: http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/html/timeline.html http://www.math.nmsu.edu/~crypto/Timeline.html http://fly.hiwaay.net/~paul/cryptology/history.html http://www.achiever.com/freehmpg/cryptology/hocryp.html http://all.net/books/ip/Chap2-1.html http://cryptome.org/ukpk-alt.htm http://www.iwm.org.uk/online/enigma/eni-intro.htm http://www.achiever.com/freehmpg/cryptology/cryptofr.html http://www.cdt.org/crypto/milestones.shtml for information about hacker's history see: http://www.farcaster.com/sterling/chronology.htm:

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Intellectual property Intellectual property, very generally, relates to the output that result from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary and artistic fields. Traditionally intellectual property is divided into two branches: 1) industrial property (inventions, marks, industrial designs, unfair competition and geographical indications), and 2) copyright. The protection of intellectual property is guaranteed through a variety of laws, which grant the creators of intellectual goods, and services certain time-limited rights to control the use made of their products.

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General Schwarzkopf General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (* 1934) followed in his father's footsteps at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1965 he applied to join the troops in Vietnam. For the next 20 years Schwarzkopf worked on his career. As Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command, he led U.S. and allied forces in the Gulf War (Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). He retired from the Army in 1992 and wrote his autobiography. For a picture see: http://www.jesterbook.com/sections/5a_mom/gallery/schwarzkopf.htm http://www.jesterbook.com/sections/5a_mom/gal...

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