Zeugma's Cryptography Page

Click Here for Bruce Schneier's Crypto-Gram Archive (1999-2003)
Will this replace banking? by Claire Wolfe	An interesting article about internet-based money backed by gold.
DeCSS Mirror Hosted by Dr. David S. Touretzky	Pre-recorded DVD disks are generally protected with an encryption scheme to keep unauthorized use on non-approved (by the industry) players. Those of us who use Linux as their primary operating system, as opposed to the unstable and buggy stuff sold by Microsoft, do not have the ability to play DVD's because the media industries have not allowed a Linux player to be legally sold. Fortunately, the crypto used to guard the content on DVDs was really bad and has been hacked. This collection of pages has a lot of information about the DeCSS (the CSS de-scrambler) code that was developed to allow people to watch DVDs. There is a lot of politics that surrounds the publication of the code to break the weak encryption of DVDs. Click the link to the left for the whole story.
Thomas Jefferson: Crypto Rebel? by Wendy McElroy	With all the talk in the news media about the eeeeevil terrorists and pornographers getting access to strong cryptography, you might be interested in this bit of historical relevance ...
'Don't Help the Snoops' by Declan McCullagh	Congresscritter Bob Barr has something good to say about encrytion today (10.25.1999)
Cyphernomicon Webified version. This is broken up into smaller digestable chunks. The whole thing as a text file. Beware, it's more than a meg! by Tim May	This is a big post. I stole this from another website. You can find it all over the net. goto Google and search for "Cyphernomicon". However, you'll now find it here... What is it? It is the result of a series of posts made by Tim May on the Cypherpunks mailing list. It's a high-volume mailing list that is run on several different systems now that concerns mainly articles on cryptography and related issues. There is a lot of off topic posting and spam, but the list is sometimes pretty interesting. If you'd like instructions of how to subscribe, send a message to be and I'll clue you in.
Agency Says Encryption Law Needed"	This is an article by the Washington Post. I'm beginning to think it would be better for those of us who care about freedom if the government would just come right out and say that they consider the Constitution of the United States to be just so much toilet paper.
Bernstein-v-USDOJ	On May 6, 1999, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit handed down a decision on the case BERNSTEIN V USDOJ (Case Number: 97-16686). It is an extremely important case if you, like me, are concerned at all about the issues of Cryptography and Privacy. In this case, the justices ruled that in this case, source code is speech, and as such is protected against 1st amendment infringements by government thugs and bureaucrats. Thus, in the Ninth Circuit, it has suddenly become legal to export the source code to strong cryptography!
Call to Arms against F[reeh,uck] by Attila T. Hun attila@hun.org	I initially hesitated to put this on my page, as I don't particularly agree with the writer's opinions as they regard Israel, the PLO and Hamas. However, he has an important point to make about the fact that Lying Scum Freeh will use the fact that those organizations the U.S. (Feral) Government considers to be "terrorists" can obtain and use high-quality encryption as a screen behind which to hide when he proposes to take away our freedom by restricting the availablility of unbreakable cryptography.
From Crossbows to Cryptography by Chuck Hammill	A good primer on why cryptography is important to you (whether you know it or not), and why the government dislikes it.
Crypto-Anarchy and Virtual Communities by Tim May	"The past two decades have produced a revolution in cryptography (crypto, for short) the science of the making of ciphers and codes. Beyond just simple ciphers, useful mainly for keeping communications secret, modern crypto includes diverse tools for authentication of messages, for digital time stamping of documents, for hiding messages in other documents (steganography), and even for schemes for digital cash."
Why Cryptography is Harder Than it Looks. by Bruce Schneier	Mr. Schneier is the author of Applied Cryptography. This book is =the= definitive textbook on cryptography. If you are interested in the science (art?), you are advised by just about everyone in the field to first read his book. The text linked to here is an email message he posted to the cypherpunks mailing list.
Untraceable Digital Cash, Information Markets, and BlackNet by Tim May	"In [this paper] ... I realized it would be best to concentrate on a specific example rather than speak in generalities or try to educate folks about what digital cash is, how it works, how regulators and law enforcement types will try to control it, etc. I use an experimental--and controversial--experiment I released on the Net several years ago, BlackNet, as this example."
My life as an international arms courier By Matt Blaze	Under an obscure provision of US law, devices and computer programs that use encryption techniques to hide information from prying eyes and ears are considered "munitions" and subject to the same rules that govern the international arms trade. In particular, taking such items out of this country requires the approval of the State Department, which decides whether exporting something might endanger national security.