Re: Disappearing Cryptography

[pcw@access.digex.net (Peter Wayner)]

>A book by Peter Wayner (pcw@access.digex.com),
>of interest to cypherpunks.
>(OK, cypherpunks mailing list subscribers then)
>
>There is more info at Peter's home page:
>http://www.access.digex.net/~pcw/pcwpage.html
>but I couldn't get to it when I tried just now.

Yes, my service provider, DIGEX, is really terrible about
providing access
to my net page.  I'm sorry about this, but if you need more
information,
feel free to write me.
>
>I got my copy from Border's in Houston on Sunday.
>
>He describes mimic functions, a particular interest of
>mine.  He also covers basic encryption, error correction,
>secret sharing, compression, context free grammers,
>anonymous remailers, reversible computing, etc.
>
>There is an evaluation of several stego packages, and
>an inclusive (there isn't enough published about
>steganography to call it extensive) bibliography.
>
>The presentation is at an introductory, but not trivial
>level.  I wish there had been more technical explanations,
>but I suppose the author would have lost a sizable fraction
>of an already tiny audience.
>

Yes, this was one dilemma I faced with writing the text and I
decided that a "Scientific American" level text would be more
likely to appeal to more people. In fact, my hope is that many
people will be interested in a presentation of this level
because of the political implications. If you can't find the
information, you can't censor it.

I think, though, that there will be plenty of meat on the bones
of this book for many people. Anyone who reads cypherpunks
carefully and works through the mathematical details won't find
much new here, but I don't know if there is much else out there.
The proceedings from the information hiding workshop in
Cambridge will generate some more papers, but that's in the
future.



>By the way, "the people who participate on the cypherpunks
>mailing list" get a nice "thankyou" in the preface.

Of course this should be repeated and amplified. Many people
post great stuff to the cypherpunks list. I couldn't have done
it without you. My only regret is that the best people on the
list might not learn much new from the book. Sigh.



>
>Rick F. Hoselton  (who doesn't claim to present opinions for
>others)