I just finished a fascinating book called The Code Book by Simon Singh. A fascinating history of cryptography and cryptanalysis throughout history that tells not only the great history of this secret world but also explains all of that funky math with a brilliant level of explanation. This guy is the math professor we all would have loved in college unlike that strange creature who we all ended up with who didn’t speak any earthly language and wrote in some strange script that was designed for Martians. In either case, if you want to know about the history of keeping secrets this is a great book to read.
Unfortunately, it is books like this that make into the crypto freak that everyone that I know loathes. But too late now. I’m inspired to start encouraging the use of secured (or at the very least, signed) email communication. The best way to teach they’ve always said is to lead by example. So, I went out and purchased the latest copy of PGP. For those windows users who don’t want to spend any money, check out the latest edition of WinPT which is pretty good even with a few bugs.
In any case, here is my public key. And sorry, all of those annoying strings of random characters are back in my emails. ;)
[Listening to: Lucky Ball & Chain - They Might Be Giants - Flood (02:46)]