Mathematical Digest
Short Summaries of Articles about Mathematics
in the Popular Press"Homeland Insecurity," by Charles C. Mann. The Atlantic Monthly Online,September 2002. This is a lengthy article about Bruce Schneier, cryptographer, and aboutcrytptology, especially as it applies to national security and the accompanyingsocial issues. "Cryptology is a specialized branch of mathematics with somecomputer science thrown in. As recently as the 1970s there were no cryptologycourses in university mathematics or computer science departments; nor werethere crypto textbooks, crypto journals, or crypto software...Now it is amultibillion-dollar field with applications in almost every commercial arena."An accompanying sidebar article, "A Web-Only Primer on Public-Key Encryption"is posted online in the same issue. --- Annette Emerson |
