Convergence |
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Governmental Influence Agencies like the NSA are currently able to eavesdrop on anyone with few restrictions only - though other messages are spread by the NSA. Theoretically cryptography can make that difficult. Hence those agencies speak up for actions like introducing trapdoors to make it possible to get access to everybody's data. See the U.S. discussion about the Clipper Chip some years ago: While encryption offers us privacy for the transmission of data, we do not only wish to have it but also need it if we want to transport data which shall not be seen by anyone else but the recipient of our message. Given this, the governments and governmental institutions/organizations fear to lose control. Strict laws are the consequence. The often repeated rumor that the Internet was a sphere of illegality has been proven wrong. Some parts are controlled by law very clearly. One of them is cryptography. Prohibition of cryptography or at least its restriction are considered an appropriate tool against criminality. Or one should say: had been considered that. In the meantime also governmental institutions have to admit that those restrictions most of all work against the population instead against illegal actors. Therefore laws have been changed in many states during the last five years. Even the USA, the Master of cryptography-restriction, liberated its laws in December 1999 to be more open-minded now. for an insight into the discussion having gone on for years see: the final text of the new U.S. Encryption Regulations you will find under: an explanation of the regulations can be found under: |
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So what does cryptography mean? cryptography: It is the study of encryption, the art/science to create and use codes and/or ciphers with the purpose of enciphering as well as deciphering. After a relatively vivid but slow development of cryptography for nearly 4.000 years the inventions of the telegraph, radio and computer had a high impact on the velocity of further inventions concerning encryption. Most of the time economic, political or military reasons lie behind the necessity of encryption. As visible from the timetable cryptography it is also done for private and individual interests. An extraordinary example for this is the Braille Code, developed as a possibility for blind people to read and write. A lot of very interesting and intelligent websites about cryptography can be found in the Internet.Some websites offering links to various cryptography-websites are: Further there exists a wide range of web-magazines/newsletters/mailing lists on cryptography, e.g.: Crypto-Gram Newsletter: Journal of Computer Security: Cypherpunks: Stegano-L: ZD Internet Magazine: |
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Sun Microsystems Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Palo Alto, USA, Sun Microsystems manufactures computer workstations, For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: |
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Roman smoke telegraph network, 150 A.D. The Roman smoke signals network consisted of towers within visible range of each other and had a total length of about 4500 kilometers. It was used for military signaling. For a similar telegraph network in ancient Greece see |
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Optical communication system by Aeneas Tacitus, 4th century B.C. Aeneas Tacitus, a Greek military scientist and cryptographer, invented an optical communication system that combines water and beacon telegraphy. Torches indicated the beginnings and the ends of message transmissions while water jars were used to transmit the messages. These jars had a plugged standard-size hole drilled on the bottom side and were filled with water. As those who sent and those who received the message unplugged the jars simultaneously, the water drained out. Because the transmitted messages corresponded to water levels, the sender indicated by torch signal that the appropriate water level has been reached. It is a disadvantage that the possible messages are restricted to a given code, but as this system was mainly used for military purposes, this was offset by the advantage that it was almost impossible for outsiders to understand these messages unless they possessed the codebook. With communication separated from transportation, the distant became near. Tacitus' telegraph system was very fast and not excelled until For further information see Joanne Chang & Anna Soellner, Decoding Device, |
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RSA The best known of the two-key cryptosystems developed in the mid-1980s is the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) cryptoalgorithm, which was first published in April, 1977. Since that time, the algorithm has been employed in the most widely-used Internet electronic communications encryption program, |
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Adi Shamir Adi Shamir was one of three persons in a team to invent the |
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Gutenberg's printing press, 1455 Gutenberg's printing press, an innovative aggregation of inventions known for centuries before Gutenberg: the olive oil press, oil-based ink, block-print technology, and movable types, allowed the mass production of the movable type used to reproduce a page of text and increased the production rate enormously. During the Middle Ages monks took at least a year over making a handwriting copy of a book. Gutenberg printed about 300 sheets per day. Because parchment was too costly for mass production - often for the production of one copy of a medieval book a whole flock of sheep was used - it was substituted by cheap paper made from recycled clothing left over from the massive number of dead caused by the Great Plague. Within forty-five years, in 1500, already ten million copies were available for a few hundred thousand literate. Because individuals could examine a range of opinions now, the printed Bible, especially after having been translated into German by Martin Luther, and increasing literacy added to the subversion of clerical authorities. The interest in books increased with the rise of vernacular, non-Latin literary texts, beginning with Dante's Divine Comedy, the first literary text written in Italian. Among others, the improvement of the distribution and the production of books and increased literacy made the development of print mass media possible. Michael Giesecke (Sinnenwandel Sprachwandel Kulturwandel. Studien zur Vorgeschichte der Informationsgesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992) has shown that due to a division of labor among authors, printers and typesetters Gutenberg's invention increasingly led to a standardization of - written and unwritten - language in form of orthography, grammar and signs. To communicate one's ideas became linked to the use of a kind of code, and reading became a kind of rite of passage, in every human's life an important step towards independency. With the increasing linkage of knowledge to wide reading and learnedness, the history of knowledge becomes the history of readings, of readings dependent on chance and on circumstance. For further details see: Martin Warnke, Text und Technik, Bruce Jones, Manuscripts, Books, and Maps: The Printing Press and a Changing World, |
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