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July 21, 2002
REVIEWS: Prying into private lives
For any computer nerd or even a freak hacker, Stephen Levy’s Crypto: secrecy and privy in the new code war is a must read semi-novel. Semi because the book is a fiction which relates incidents that are potentially real. It narrates the struggle of a man who fights for and saves the rights of privacy from being usurped by a few unethical men. Cryptography, crypto in short, is the art of encoding and decoding mumbo jumbo words or phrases (meaning plain text) into readable form — ‘the study of secret writing and codes’ as defined in the dictionary. Stephen Levy gives details of how the magic of cryptography affected one man who eventually became the father of modern cryptography. Levy doesn’t mince words. True, at times he becomes a bit disconcerting, explaining the usage of mathematical equations and the overall art of utilizing cryptonology, but anyone with the slightest knowledge of this digital wonder would know that cryptography has played a vital role in world events.
For example, it was used by the Allied forces during the Second World War to break the back of the German U-boats which almost vaporized the American and the British fleets. From encoding and decoding, from deciphering to safeguarding, this book is an IT lover’s paradise.
Cryptography, as Levy explains it, is like a cat and mouse game. The sender sends, the receiver receives, and the cunning hacker waits round the corner to hack his way through the message. The trick is to deceive him and send these messages without him being able to code it.
The story revolves around Whitfield Diffie, one of the pioneers of modern day digital cryptography. Diffie discovers cryptology and decides to use it against the wishes of the government. The book gives an interesting account of Diffie’s fight against the American NSA (National Security Agency). The NSA and GCHQ (General Communications Headquarters), the British cousin of the NSA, were the sole security advisers of their lands. They had the power and authority to destroy anyone they wanted. Their weapon was cryptography.
After the war, both America and Britain sustained, maintained and upgraded their spy satellite networks. They were working for the security of their people. What really irked Diffie was that the NSA and GCHQ knew what was happening in the lives of the people and nobody was safe from the reach of their spy cameras. Above that, they were so secretive, that they did not allow anyone to speak on the subject in public.
But Diffie wanted to investigate this phenomenon in the general interest of the public. His aim was to make cryptography available to every household where people would have the right to safeguard all their belongings, material as well as virtual. This measure would also give them their own private space. Another exciting factor for Diffie was that crypto was all about mathematics. Diffie loved mathematics! But his real concern was the violation of man’s privacy.
The world each day seems to be on a roller coaster ride and personal computers are an important part of an individual’s life. People store knowledge and information in the hard drives of their computers and if these quarters were to be vulnerable to prying eyes, then one’s personal freedom would be in jeopardy — this was Diffie’s contention.
The fact of the matter is that hackers tend to break in when one hardly expects. Diffie wanted to create systems which hackers would find impossible to penetrate without the users prior permission.
Next addressed in the book are problems related to the network systems which are protected with passwords controlled by the network administrator. The administrator seemed quite a comfortable idea but what were to happen if in the name of justice, NSA or GCHQ officials would pressurize the respected administrator to leak out these passwords. Once again, obviously the individual (administrator) would not risk his life and interfere with the proceedings involving criminals or unlawful acts.
Diffie’s belied that intruding people’s cyber space life was unfair. Justifying one’s actions specially in the name of security obviously would lead to encroachment of the rights of individuals: the right to sleep without worrying about people watching you, or in this case without worrying that someone might hack into the computers and wipe out entire directories. Diffie’s goal (which he achieved) was to safeguard the right of people to live and work freely.
Stephen Levy’s writings have been appreciated widely. He is an editor with Newsweek magazine, where his columns on IT and its development have been published. Crypto is a masterpiece. It took him almost eight years to compile, edit and publish the book. It should provide a focus to young entrepreneurs in quest of a mission.
Writer’s email: khurrum@journalist.com
Crypto: secrecy and privacy in the new code war
By Steven Levy
Penguin Books
Available at Paramount Books, 152/O, Block 2, PECH Society, Karachi-75400. Tel: 021-4310030
Email:
paramount@cyber.net.pk
ISBN 0-140-244-328
356pp. £8.99. Rs425
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