Information On Cryptography And Effects On Society?

Plasmoid asks: "I am doing a school project on cryptography and its effects on society. I am looking for information on my topic. Any sort of information would be great(i.e. books, Web site, people, magazines, etc.). If you or someone you know can speak to me about my topic please e-mail me. I plan to cover NSA, Echelon, other misc. paranoia, current world treaties/laws and important historic events. Any help would be greatly appreciated." Now this sounds like a school project I wish I could work on. I wonder if Plasmoid would mind sharing the results when he's finished.

Comments

The Crypto-Grams are your best source

[Effugas]

Plasmoid--

Grab some mountain dew and fire up the printer: Bruce Schneier's Crypto-Gram(http://www.counterpane.com) is possibly the most intensive and well written splashdown into the world of crypto that you're going to find.

I spent an entire evening a while back catching myself up with it--I have a binder sitting in my office that is devoted to nothing else. Bruce's book, Applied Cryptography, is an amazing piece of work(filled, incidentally, with enough humor to keep you up, but enough lucid explanations to leave your jaw dropped...the fact that I actually understand the incredibly complex digital cash protocols out there is a testament to Bruce's skill as a writer)...but his Crypto-Gram, besides being an excellent preview to the writing style you can expect, should you give a very fulfilling look at crypto past and present--everything from the basic tech to advanced concepts.

My personal suggestion would be to start with the oldest one and move forward until you hit the present. Trust me--get through those, and you'll understand alot of what's going on. It'll take you an evening, but you'll enjoy it.

Extremely high signal/noise ratio in those.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

from the we're-ok-you're-not-ok dept.

[Signal 11]

This is the TLA National Conglomerate. Based on years of research and development, we have concluded that cryptography is only used by pedophiles, hackers, and terrorists. TLA National has been fighting for the rights of private citizens since the introduction of the 8 Track and was instrumental in several recent sweeping legislative changes designed to protect you as a consumer. This includes the DMCA, which extends copyright law and allows us to continue to market to you music for a longer period of time, and to keep prices low, also includes several protection measures which cannot be bypassed.

TLA National also recognizes Mr. Gore for his accomplishments in creating a national internet for the purpose of mass-marketing and e-commerce. With these technologies, TLA National hopes to increase it's competitive offerings to you, the customer. Please note that under the terms of the DMCA you may not criticize or reverse-engineer this post. This is to ensure the lowest possible prices to you.

Fine print: Cryptography is illegal, but copyright protection mechanisms are not. Monopolies are illegal, but strategic alliances and mergers are not. Price hiking is illegal, but "competitive offerings" are not. We use the latter terminology and technology in all cases.. even though it is identical to the former, pay no attention to the double-talk... it's there for your protection afterall. What we're protecting you from, is of course protected under copyright law. Attempting to reverse-engineer this post to derive the truth is a felony and prosecutable by up to a $30,000 fine and/or 3 years in jail.

We appreciate your cooporation. -- Three Letter Acronym National

Ask Slashdot (to do your homework)

[scrytch]

Learning how to find the sources is part of the research process in academia. Asking a public forum to find them for you should be a matter of last resort, and I sincerely doubt Plasmoid has pursued other avenues. DYOFH (Do Your Own Fucking Homework) is the standard academic equivalent to RTFM, and I think it needs to be used a lot more often. The Slashdot editors need to exercise some common sense judgement as well.

Google?

[Kaa]

It seems that Slashdot has degenerated to the level of posting school-project information requests as newsworthy items.

A brief visit to Yahoo or Google would provide tons of information to sift through. If the person asking doesn't know this, it seems a waste to time to point him anywhere.

I would advise CmdrTaco and Hemos to scan through the Titanium Cranium awards (www.fourmilab.ch) -- there they'll find many more similar items. Here is an example:


From clueless@aol.com Wed Apr 17 14:38:40 1996
Subject: Project for school

Dear sir,

I am working on a project for my trigonometry class that involves the
orbit of the earth and the orbit of Haley's Comet. The problem is to
show whether Haley's Comet will crash into the earth using trig
functions to prove my position. Can you send me information on these
orbits?

I also need information about Haley's Comet for a research paper that
is part of the project. Would you be able to help me with this?


The project was assigned just this week and is due on Friday, April
19.

Thank you very much

Kaa

Sources

[abelsson]

Funny - i just wrote an essay on that topic. It's in swedish though ;)

Anyway - some of the sources I used:
Some good sources:
The Codebreakers, David Kahn. *The* source of cryptographic stories and research up until the 60's. A must have.
Applied Cryptography, Bruce Schneier. A lot of practical advice, but also more political views.

Encyclopedia of Cryptology, David Newton - Reference work with clear explanations for the most in current and older cryptography.

The Codebook - Simon Singh. A lot easier than the above material.

and finally some links:
http://www.hack.gr/users/dij/crypto/
http://www.rsa.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai/algorithms.html

Bibliography

[harshaw]

Hey Plasmoid,

I did a little work in this area in school as well. I agree with an earlier poster that the resources are out there and you should draw your own conclusions. The paper I wrote focused on the influence of the NSA with the development of DES and the growth of the nascent crypto community. I think I can help you by giving you a bibliography:

Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace. Penguin Books Ltd., Middlesex England. 1983.

Brankstand, D.K. et al. "Report on the Workshop on Cryptography in Support of Computer Security." NBSIR 77-1291, National Bureau of Standards, Sep 21-22, 1976, September 1977.

Coppersmith, D. "The Data Encryption Standard (DES) and its strength against attacks." IBM Journal of Research and Development. V. 38, N. 3. May 1994. 243-250.

Denning, Peter J. "Government Classification of Private Ideas." Communications of the ACM. March 1981. 105.

"Encryption Technology, Privacy, and National Security." Technology Review. August September 1986. [get author and page number]

Foerstel, Herbert N. Secret Science: Federal Control of American Science and Technology. Praeger Publishers, Westport CT. 1993.

"The Government's Classification of Private Ideas". Hearings, 96th Congress, February 28, March 21, August 1980. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 1981), 271.

Kinnucan, Paul. "Data Encryption Gurus: Tuchman and Meyer." Cryptologia. V.2 N 4. October 1978. 371-382.

Kolata, Gina Bari. "Cryptography: A New Clash Between Academic Freedom and National Security". Science. August 29th, 1980. 995-996.

Massey, J.L. "An Introduction to Contemporary Cryptology." Proceedings of the IEEE. V. 76, N. 5. May 1988. 533-549.

Schneier, Bruce. Applied Cryptography. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, New York. 1996.

Shapley, Deborah and Kolata, Gina Bari. "Cryptology: Scientists Puzzle over Threat to Open Research, Publication." Science. September 30, 1977. 1345-46.

Shaker, Richard. "The Agency that came in from the Cold: exceprts from an address at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Baltimore on January 8, 1992." Notices of the American Mathematical Society. V. 39, N. 5. May 1, 1992. 408-411.

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "Unclassified Summary: Involvement of the NSA in the development of the Data Encryption Standard." Cryptologia. October 1978, pp 387-389.