Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
3
On the Brink of a Revolution
By all accounts, 1976 marks one of the most important dates in the history
of cryptography: the birth of the public-key paradigm. Two Stanford
researchers, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, presented a set of inno-
vative cryptographic ideas in a landmark publication, “New Directions in
Cryptography,” a paper that stands out not only for its scientific content
but also for its self-awareness as a potential game-changer.
1
Opening with
a prophetic “We stand on the brink of a revolution in cryptography,” it
made an eloquent case that cryptographic devices would soon leave the
confines of the military world to become ubiquitous fixtures of computing
networks, embedded in everything from computer terminals to cash dis-
pensers. In turn, this emerging civilian context would require the develop-
ment of new cryptographic methods to achieve, among others, easier
distribution of keys and authentication of electronic contracts. “New Direc-
tions” proposed innovative techniques addressing both of these issues.
Furthermore, the authors provided a new mathematical framework for
ascertaining the security of these techniques, suggesting that theoretical
developments in information theory and computer science offered the
promise “of providing provably secure cryptosystems, changing this
ancient art into a science.”
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It was quite a program, and in large part, the
paper delivered.
What perhaps secured “New Directions” such a lofty place in the pan-
theon of cryptography was its authors' ability to situate their discoveries
in the context of a broad historical progression. The public-key paradigm
offered not only a new mode of key distribution, but also a new mode of
doing cryptography altogether, one in which the design and evaluation of
cryptographic algorithms, standards, and products would be vetted through
a public process. The technical and the social were intimately fused in this
