Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
for bankruptcy in 1999.
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Although Chaum seemingly could not quite
bring his proposals into lasting commercial success, his work opened up
not only durable research avenues but also—more importantly—a certain
design space. That space suggested that computers need not necessarily be
linked with images of surveillance and social control and that coherent
and creative scientific research programs could be driven by explicitly
social goals—in this case, privacy protection, anonymity, and their implica-
tions for democratic participation.
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At the same time, Chaum shared in some of the assumptions that have
come to characterize the culture of modern cryptographic research. First,
the joining of networked computers and cryptography would vastly out-
perform paper-based security technologies: “Coupling computers to tele-
communications technologies creates what has been called the ultimate
medium—it certainly is a big step up from paper.”
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Second, cryptographic
methods would provide the means to altogether avoid centralized trust
mechanisms: “With modern cryptology, we can solve any information
security problem just by letting each person have their own computer. Let
them use their own computer to protect their own interests. There is no
need at all to have any mutually trusted mechanisms.”
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Conclusion
“New Directions” indeed ushered in a new era in the world of cryptogra-
phy, on multiple levels. Most visibly, in the wake of the public-key revolu-
tion, it led to the emergence of an independent academic community,
eager to distance itself from the “Dark Side” of intelligence agencies and
state controls over cryptographic research. Yet beyond the media-friendly
image of cryptographers as defenders of electronic freedoms, multiple
agendas operated simultaneously within the field. These agendas encom-
passed a broad spectrum of relationships to state authority and power—
from May's “crypto anarchy” to Simmons's “science of information
integrity,” Goldreich's foundationalist project, and Diffie's trade-offs
between individual privacy and population controls. They also differed in
their conceptualization of the role of cryptography proper: should it be
concerned with the crafting of digital analogues of paper-based security
protocols, with the identification of cryptographic tasks that capture
“natural security concerns,” or with a more explicit commitment to value-
driven design of cryptographic tools?
