Book Review. Crypto: How The Code Rebels Shell The Government---Saving Privacy Inward The Digital Age.
In graduate school, I had read a similar aversion happened to me afterward a bad networking course). Another reason, I regret to admit, may live that I had some distributed systems snobbery going on that time. I was thence into the distributed systems/algorithms surface area that I was quick to label AI, security, in addition to this, in addition to that equally uninteresting or useless *to me*. I wishing I could induce got been to a greater extent than opened upward minded. I am certain reading this mass in addition to thence would induce got changed my outlook toward safety in addition to cryptography.
(Side Remark: The lesson, kids, is to ever maintain an opened upward mind. Being a snob is stupid. I induce got been seeing snobbery against blockchain piece of work amidst some systems researchers, in addition to that is wrong. I induce got criticized some parts of blockchain in addition to fully-decentralized approaches many times on this blog, but I know improve than beingness a snob. My encephalon is open, I am reading nearly it, in addition to when I regain something interesting in addition to suitable for my skillset, I volition live happy to piece of work to a greater extent than on it in addition to contribute.)
Coming dorsum to the book, I recommend this mass rattling highly. The mass skillfully combines rattling personal stories of the researchers involved inwards crypto piece of work amongst uncomplicated explanations of the of import technical materials. Levy certain knows how to tell stories.
Now to live hypercritical in addition to to nitpick, I thought the writing felt somewhat rushed inwards some places. I thought the writing inwards the Hackers mass was to a greater extent than skilled in addition to improve refined. My guess is Levy had to rush this to publication. There were occasional ambiguous sentences, which a careful editor in addition to proofreader would induce got caught.
...
"I read it to a greater extent than carefully than anyone had ever read it. Kahn's mass to me is similar the Vedas," he explains, citing the centuries-old Indian text. "There's an human face I learned: 'If a human loses his cow, he looks for it inwards the Vedas.' "
...
Why had Diffie's once-intermittent involvement go out such a consuming passion? Behind every smashing cryptographer, it seems, at that topographic point is a driving pathology. ... "I had been looking all my life for some smashing mystery. ... I intend somewhere deep inwards my hear is the notion that if I could acquire exactly the correct thing, I would live saved."
...
The half-hour coming together went on for an hour, 2 hours, longer. Hellman only didn't desire it to end, in addition to Diffie, too, seemed eager to go out on equally long equally possible. Hellman had promised his married adult woman he'd live abode past times belatedly afternoon to lookout their 2 pocket-sized children patch she went off, thence finally he asked Diffie dorsum to his house. No problem! Diffie called Mary in addition to she came over to induce got dinner amongst Whit in addition to all the Hellmans, in addition to it wasn't until 11:00 or thence that nighttime that the dialogue broke up.
He would separate the key.
...
Merkle, unpolluted amongst cognition nearly theory or history of crypto, was unaware of the apparent impossibility of his mission. He only tried to solve the problem.
The newspaper appealed to Rivest's midpoint equally good equally his head. Rivest was a theoretician, but ane for whom uncomplicated abstractions were non enough. The ideal for him was truly putting the ethereal mechanics of math to work, of making a tangible departure inwards the globe of flesh in addition to dirt.
On Apr 3, 1997, a graduate pupil named Anni Bruce held a Passover seder at her home. Rivest was there, in addition to Shamir, in addition to Adleman. For several hours ideas of mathematical formulas in addition to factoring were position aside for a recapitulation of the escape of the Jewish peopole from Egypt. As is customary amongst seders, people downed a lot of wine. It was nearly midnight when Rivest in addition to his married adult woman returned home. While Gail Rivest got ready for bed, Ron stretched out on the couch in addition to began thinking nearly the employment that had consumed him in addition to his colleagues for months. He would oft create that---lie apartment on the sofa amongst his eyes closed, equally if he were deep inwards sleep. Sometimes he'd sit down upward in addition to flip through the pages of a book, non truly looking, but reworking the numbers. He had a figurer terminal at home, but that nighttime he left it off. "I was exactly thinking," he says.
That was when it came to him---the cognitive lightning bolt known equally the Eureka Moment. He had a scheme! It was similar to some of their to a greater extent than recent attempts inwards that it used release theory in addition to factoring. But this was simpler, to a greater extent than elegant. Warning himself non to acquire overexcited---Shamir in addition to Adleman, afterward all, had broken many of his previous proposals---he jotted downwards some notes. He did let himself the luxury of proverb to his married adult woman that he'd come upward up amongst an thought that exactly mightiness work. He doesn't retrieve phoning the guys that night. Adleman, though, insists that he received a telephone call upward sometime afterward midnight.
...
Rivest insisted that it was a articulation project, that Shamir's in addition to Adleman's contributions were crucial, that the scheme was the lastly call for inwards an evolutionary process. To Rivest, it was equally if the iii of them had been inwards a boat together, all taking turns rowing in addition to navigating inwards search of a novel land. Rivest mightiness induce got stepped out of the boat firs, but they all deserved credit for the discovery.
(Side Remark: The lesson, kids, is to ever maintain an opened upward mind. Being a snob is stupid. I induce got been seeing snobbery against blockchain piece of work amidst some systems researchers, in addition to that is wrong. I induce got criticized some parts of blockchain in addition to fully-decentralized approaches many times on this blog, but I know improve than beingness a snob. My encephalon is open, I am reading nearly it, in addition to when I regain something interesting in addition to suitable for my skillset, I volition live happy to piece of work to a greater extent than on it in addition to contribute.)
Coming dorsum to the book, I recommend this mass rattling highly. The mass skillfully combines rattling personal stories of the researchers involved inwards crypto piece of work amongst uncomplicated explanations of the of import technical materials. Levy certain knows how to tell stories.
Now to live hypercritical in addition to to nitpick, I thought the writing felt somewhat rushed inwards some places. I thought the writing inwards the Hackers mass was to a greater extent than skilled in addition to improve refined. My guess is Levy had to rush this to publication. There were occasional ambiguous sentences, which a careful editor in addition to proofreader would induce got caught.
Some selected parts from the book
I am non going to create a proper mass review. Instead I regain it to a greater extent than fun to include tidbits from the mass without providing whatsoever context.Pages 21&24: Whit Diffie is a careful reader
By instantly Diffie had finally gotten around to reading David Kahn's The Codebreakers. Since Diffie was a rattling slow, methodical reader, tackling a mass of a chiliad densely packed pages was a major project for him. "He traveled everywhere amongst that mass inwards hand," says his friend Harriet Fell. "If y'all invited him to dinner, he'd come upward amongst The Codebreakers." But Diffie found the hundreds of hours he spent on the mass to live good worth the trouble....
"I read it to a greater extent than carefully than anyone had ever read it. Kahn's mass to me is similar the Vedas," he explains, citing the centuries-old Indian text. "There's an human face I learned: 'If a human loses his cow, he looks for it inwards the Vedas.' "
...
Why had Diffie's once-intermittent involvement go out such a consuming passion? Behind every smashing cryptographer, it seems, at that topographic point is a driving pathology. ... "I had been looking all my life for some smashing mystery. ... I intend somewhere deep inwards my hear is the notion that if I could acquire exactly the correct thing, I would live saved."
Pages 31-33. Diffie meets Hellman
"It was a coming together of the minds," says Hellman....
The half-hour coming together went on for an hour, 2 hours, longer. Hellman only didn't desire it to end, in addition to Diffie, too, seemed eager to go out on equally long equally possible. Hellman had promised his married adult woman he'd live abode past times belatedly afternoon to lookout their 2 pocket-sized children patch she went off, thence finally he asked Diffie dorsum to his house. No problem! Diffie called Mary in addition to she came over to induce got dinner amongst Whit in addition to all the Hellmans, in addition to it wasn't until 11:00 or thence that nighttime that the dialogue broke up.
Page 67. Diffie's existential crisis
Mary Fischer recalls the lowest point. One twenty-four hr menses she walked into the McCarthys' chamber in addition to found Diffie amongst his caput inwards his hands, weeping. "I asked him what was wrong," she says, "and he told me he was never going to amount to anything, that I should regain someone else, that he was --and I retrieve this exact term-- a broken-down erstwhile researcher."Page 69. Diffie's breakthrough
That spring, Diffie had settled into a routine at the McCarthy house. Every forenoon he would brand breakfast for Mary in addition to Sarah, McCarthy's fourteen-year-old daughter. Then Mary would go out off to work, Sarah would go out off to school, in addition to Diffie would rest home. One twenty-four hr menses inwards May 1975, he spent the forenoon hours thinking. After a luncheon break, he returned to his mental work. For the umpteenth time, he had been thinking nearly the employment of establishing a secure log-in password on a figurer network. Again, at that topographic point was that erstwhile employment of having to trust the administrator amongst the surreptitious password. How could y'all unopen that 3rd political party out of the scheme entirely? Sometime inwards the afternoon, things all of a precipitous became clear to Diffie: devise a organisation that could non only render everything inwards Diffie's lately envisioned one-way authentication scheme but could also deliver encryption in addition to decryption inwards a novel manner. It would solve the untrustworthy administrator problem, in addition to much, much more.He would separate the key.
Pages 77-78. Merkle the Berkeley undergraduate student
Instead, for reasons that remain unclear but are likely related to Merkle's unconventional mind, he fixated on what struck him equally a weird, somewhat challenging aspect of a to a greater extent than basic dilemma. The essential cryptographic scenario assumed that the channel of communication was vulnerable. ... But what measures could y'all exploit if y'all wanted to communicate amongst someone who wasn't already inwards possession of a pre-arranged, secure symmetrical key?...
Merkle, unpolluted amongst cognition nearly theory or history of crypto, was unaware of the apparent impossibility of his mission. He only tried to solve the problem.
Pages 90-100. Enter Ron Rivest in addition to the RSA algorithm
Even so, "New Directions inwards Cryptography" [Diffie-Hellman 1976 paper] turned out to live to a greater extent than than interesting to Rivest: it thrilled him. Ultimately, it changed his life.The newspaper appealed to Rivest's midpoint equally good equally his head. Rivest was a theoretician, but ane for whom uncomplicated abstractions were non enough. The ideal for him was truly putting the ethereal mechanics of math to work, of making a tangible departure inwards the globe of flesh in addition to dirt.
On Apr 3, 1997, a graduate pupil named Anni Bruce held a Passover seder at her home. Rivest was there, in addition to Shamir, in addition to Adleman. For several hours ideas of mathematical formulas in addition to factoring were position aside for a recapitulation of the escape of the Jewish peopole from Egypt. As is customary amongst seders, people downed a lot of wine. It was nearly midnight when Rivest in addition to his married adult woman returned home. While Gail Rivest got ready for bed, Ron stretched out on the couch in addition to began thinking nearly the employment that had consumed him in addition to his colleagues for months. He would oft create that---lie apartment on the sofa amongst his eyes closed, equally if he were deep inwards sleep. Sometimes he'd sit down upward in addition to flip through the pages of a book, non truly looking, but reworking the numbers. He had a figurer terminal at home, but that nighttime he left it off. "I was exactly thinking," he says.
That was when it came to him---the cognitive lightning bolt known equally the Eureka Moment. He had a scheme! It was similar to some of their to a greater extent than recent attempts inwards that it used release theory in addition to factoring. But this was simpler, to a greater extent than elegant. Warning himself non to acquire overexcited---Shamir in addition to Adleman, afterward all, had broken many of his previous proposals---he jotted downwards some notes. He did let himself the luxury of proverb to his married adult woman that he'd come upward up amongst an thought that exactly mightiness work. He doesn't retrieve phoning the guys that night. Adleman, though, insists that he received a telephone call upward sometime afterward midnight.
...
Rivest insisted that it was a articulation project, that Shamir's in addition to Adleman's contributions were crucial, that the scheme was the lastly call for inwards an evolutionary process. To Rivest, it was equally if the iii of them had been inwards a boat together, all taking turns rowing in addition to navigating inwards search of a novel land. Rivest mightiness induce got stepped out of the boat firs, but they all deserved credit for the discovery.
Where is the sequel?
OK, I am tired of typing. The mass is 300 pages, in addition to I only wrote a few of the most interesting parts inwards the starting fourth dimension 100 pages. Please go out read the book, I intend y'all volition similar it.
I hope Steven Levy writes a followup mass on Bitcoin in addition to blockchain. The mass stops around 2000 afterward discussing David Chaum's Digicash. So cryptocurrencies in addition to blockchain would live a natural sequel to this one.
MAD questions
Both Diffie's in addition to Rivest's breakthroughs came afterward many months of intense piece of work in addition to thinking. But afterward the breakthrough insight, the schemes go out piece of cake to derive in addition to explain. That is classify of similar a one-way trapdoor function, isn't it? A trapdoor constituent is a constituent that is piece of cake to compute inwards ane direction, nonetheless hard to compute inwards the contrary management (finding its inverse) without especial information, called the "trapdoor". Trapdoor functions are widely used inwards cryptography.
I don't intend at that topographic point was peril involved inwards these discoveries. It seemed similar those ideas were upward inwards the air, vaguely hovering, in addition to they had to go out through a laborious condensation menses earlier they materialized.
But hither is an interesting page on the role of chance/serendipity inwards scientific discoveries. Psychologist Kevin Dunbar in addition to colleagues guess that betwixt 30% in addition to 50% of all scientific discoveries are accidental inwards some sense.
Here is some other interesting page on multiple discoveries / simultaneous invention. Merton believed that it is multiple discoveries, rather than unique ones, that stand upward for the mutual designing inwards science.
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