The future of cryptographic algorithms

Abstract

Until the early 1970s, cryptology was restricted to closed government and military applications; commercial applications of cryptology were very rare. Cryptographic devices were expensive and they were mostly used for the protection of communications at the data link layer. The invention of public key cryptography in 1975 and the publication of the DES (Data Encryption Standard) in 1977 by the US government formed the start of open academic research in cryptology; these developments were also essential contributions towards the deployment of cryptography in large scale systems. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.