desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins) (03/20/86)
In article <1722@decwrl.DEC.COM> koning@koning.DEC (Paul Koning -- LAS Engineering) writes: > >These past few months there's been a lot of traffic in net.crypt >relating to cryptographic history, or more in general the effect >of cryptography and cryptanalysis on history. While it's very >interesting reading, I sure would like to keep that separate from >the original topic of net.crypt, which is (or seems to be anyway) >applications of cryptography in computer and communication systems >(contemporary). I think the objection to discussion of cryptographic history is inappropriate; there certainly seems to be a lot to be learned about cryptography and its applications (to any communication system) from the study of historical applications. How can one study applications without looking at actual historical examples? Perhaps your objection to the discussion of the historical *effect* of cryptography is more appropriate; however I still feel that one can learn a lot from such examples about the successes and failures of cryptography, about its strengths and weaknesses, and about the areas in which progress would be most valuable. >So I'd like to propose a net.crypt.history in order to allow the >two areas of interest to be kept separate. Before this historical discussion there was a very low level of traffic in net.crypt. No doubt this is a major reason why the historical discussion has prospered. If you would like to see more discussion of current cryptography/cryptology (as many of us would) I can only suggest that you generate some postings on areas of interest to you... -- David desJardins