Taking the mystery out of learning cryptography

Foreword

e-Everything

Every January for the past 10 years, members of a cult from all over the world have headed to Silicon Valley for a summit. In the early years, only a few cryptographers, mathematicians, and forward thinkers in the relatively new field of computer security showed up for this then-obscure event, known as the RSA Security Conference. Imagine, if you will, a group of distinguished eggheads and computer nerds getting together to talk about cryptographic algorithms and how they might one day be used to solve security problems.

In Internet years, that first event was a very long time ago. A decade for everyday people, it was an Internet generation for those of us involved with computer technology. The problems were small and often theoretical then. We couldn't imagine the looming frenzied pace of change, the way the World Wide Web (World Wide what?--it wouldn't be invented for another year) would explode, and the e-izing of everything and anything. With those changes came what those original visionaries predicted: e-fraud, e-theft, e-vandalism, e-scams, e-viruses, and e-everything-else bad along with e-everything good.

Nowadays, there are dozens of computer security conferences and exhibits. Even so, our understanding of cryptography is weak, often only abstract. Practical applications of cryptography are just beginning to become commonplace. These solutions are still young. It is a struggle for an information technology professional, and often an information protection professional, to understand how security technology works and how to apply cryptography appropriately to solve real business problems.

The RSA Security Conference is bigger than ever. Hidden among the product demos, sales pitches, and seminars, interesting technical papers are still presented. It was at RSA 2000 that I met the joyful and energetic H. X. Mel. Like many others, he and Doris Baker had a vision of how to improve security. Their vision, however, was not product implementation, but education--to make cryptography understandable to the people who need it. Their book, this book, is more than "Alice and Bob" diagrams and yet less than a tome full of math. Instead, it is filled with examples of the principles behind today's solutions, explained with an interesting historical perspective.

Even after 10 years as an IT architect in the field of information protection for a major electronics manufacturing company, I learned a lot from this book. I think you will, too.

--John Kinyon