For the software industry, it's a billion-dollar nightmare. It may be the greatest software story never completed. Last year's event could not have come at a better time. Crypto '95 happened at the peak of a mania about the once arcane study of communicating in code. The networking of the world's computers had thrust into the mainstream popular notions of cryptography, the art of keeping secrets readable only to insiders, as well as cryptanalysis, the art of outsiders cracking the codes to get at those secrets.
Some people now regard crypto's scrambling mechanisms as a panacea.
Just flood the world with it, crypto-enthusiasts say, and our secrets are safe. They crow that the technological problems in securing the Net have largely been solved. A highlight of Crypto '95 was a rambling speech by a grizzled, bearded man who until recently addressed only crowds authorized to receive wisdom deemed top-secret by the US government. His name was Robert Morris Sr., recently retired as the senior scientist at the National Security Agency, the cloistered intelligence organization at Fort Meade, Maryland. His presence drew an auditorium full of fascinated cryptographers, who leaned forward in their seats, hoping for an epiphany.