Democratizing Cryptography: The Work of Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman

In the mid-1970s, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman invented public key cryptography, an innovation that ultimately changed the world. Today public key cryptography provides the primary basis for secure communication over the internet, enabling online work, socializing, shopping, government services, and much more.

While other books have documented the development of public key cryptography, this is the first to provide a comprehensive insiders' perspective on the full impacts of public key cryptography, including six original chapters by nine distinguished scholars. The book begins with an original joint biography of the lives and careers of Diffie and Hellman, highlighting parallels and intersections, and contextualizing their work. Subsequent chapters show how public key cryptography helped establish an open cryptography community and made lasting impacts on computer and network security, theoretical computer science, mathematics, public policy, and society. The volume includes particularly influential articles by Diffie and Hellman, as well as newly transcribed interviews and Turing Award Lectures by both Diffie and Hellman.

The contributed chapters provide new insights that are accessible to a wide range of readers, from computer science students and computer security professionals, to historians of technology and members of the general public. The chapters can be readily integrated into undergraduate and graduate courses on a range of topics, including computer security, theoretical computer science and mathematics, the history of computing, and science and technology policy.

在1970年代中期，Whitfield Diffie和Martin Hellman發明了公鑰加密，這項創新最終改變了世界。如今，公鑰加密為互聯網上的安全通信提供了主要基礎，使得在線工作、社交、購物、政府服務等成為可能。

雖然其他書籍已經記錄了公鑰加密的發展，但這本書是第一本從內部人士的角度全面闡述公鑰加密的影響的著作，其中包括九位傑出學者撰寫的六個原創章節。本書以Diffie和Hellman的生平和職業生涯的聯合傳記作為開端，突出了他們的相似之處和交叉點，並將他們的工作放入了相應的背景中。隨後的章節展示了公鑰加密如何幫助建立了一個開放的密碼學社區，並對計算機和網絡安全、理論計算機科學、數學、公共政策和社會產生了持久的影響。該卷包括Diffie和Hellman的特別有影響力的文章，以及他們的訪談和圖靈獎演講的新轉錄。

這些貢獻性章節提供了新的見解，適合廣大讀者閱讀，包括計算機科學學生、計算機安全專業人士、科技史學家和一般公眾。這些章節可以輕鬆地融入本科和研究生課程中，涵蓋的主題包括計算機安全、理論計算機科學和數學、計算機歷史以及科學和技術政策。