Crypto for the people

In Steven Levy's new book, paranoid freedom fighters armed with weapons of encryption face off against Big Brother.

By Andrew Leonard

Jan 24, 2001 | Like a magnet designed to attract reporters, the crypto subculture that flourishes on the Internet exerts an irresistible attraction. All the elements for a great story are there. Big Brother matched up against libertarian "cypherpunks." Cops terrified about robbers they can't wiretap. There's even the Church of Scientology waging war against an anonymous remailer in Finland. What more could you want?

Cryptography has been variously considered a weapon, a tool for building utopia, a bulletproof vest and a numbers game sure to enchant the arithmetically inclined. It is also big business, especially since the emergence of the Internet as a worldwide phenomenon. As Steven Levy writes in "Crypto," by 2000 "the once forbidden technology was suddenly the new panacea. It was envisioned that the solution to the pirated downloading of music and films would be ... crypto. In addition, crypto was the secret sauce of protected corporate discussions used in 'virtual private networks,' a hot business trend that allowed snoop-proof conferencing. The movement of medical records to the on-line world would be possible only with crypto. And crypto was expected to be an essential component in the next generation of the Internet, where all of us would communicate with non-personal-computer 'devices' ranging from palmtops to phones to kitchen appliances. We would be wired and wirelessed up the wazoo, and crypto would be our privacy safety net."

And who better to tell us the story of how "Code Rebels Beat the Government -- Saving Privacy in the Digital Age" than Steven Levy? If only for his book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution," Levy enjoys a reputation as one of the premier chroniclers of all things digital. The best introduction to the unleashing of the personal computer, bar none, "Hackers" is a must read for anyone who cares about how digital technology has changed our lives. Two of Levy's follow-ups, "Artificial Life: How Computers Are Transforming Our Understanding of Evolution and the Future of Life" and "Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything," solidified his standing. Levy can explain complex subjects, bring to life the driest geek and weave narrative out of the most unlikely of technological obscurities. A new book by Levy is sure to be a hot commodity.

"Crypto" plays by the same rules of his earlier books. From the lead sentence, "Mary Fischer loathed Whitfield Diffie on sight," one knows one is in the hands of a master. Many people have attempted to explain public key encryption for a lay audience -- Levy is one of the few who makes the mathematics comprehensible. From the sorry tale of the Clipper Chip to the saga of Phil Zimmerman's fight to get encryption power to the people, "Crypto" is eminently readable and lucid.

But "Crypto" doesn't seethe with the same kind of excitement that "Hackers" or "Artificial Life" or "Insanely Great" do. Part of the problem may be that much of his subject matter has been covered in depth over the last few years -- not least by Levy himself. Another issue is that the mathematics involved are arcane and not easily digestible. You can read only so many times about how Alice and Bob verify each other's identity through cryptographic legerdemain before your head starts spinning. But a more fundamental problem has to do with the basic psychology of cryptography. While the tales of the personal computer or the Macintosh are propelled by the joy that the original hackers felt when delivering their creations to the public, by the sense of liberation and empowerment that accrue from the spread of the PC, crytographers are fueled by darker stuff. Paranoia, fear, distrust of authority and anger -- at the IRS, the NSA, the intrusive actions of big corporations -- are what keep cypherpunks hopped up. And those who may not be angry or paranoid are a different kind of cipher altogether, more comfortable with mind-bendingly huge numbers than they are with other people. The world of Crypto is, ultimately, cryptic. It's a hard sell.

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