Security Group Seminar, 1st November 1994
- Speaker:
- Philip Zimmerman
- Date:
- 1st November 1994 at 4.15pm
- Place:
- Hopkinson Lecture Theatre, New Museum Site
- Title:
- PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY
Modern technology has made it easier for governments to invade the
privacy of their citizens and monitor political opposition groups. But
cryptography has started to provide a means of reversing certain
aspects of this erosion of privacy, thus affecting the power
relationship between governments and citizens.
Philip Zimmermann is the creator of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), the
worldwide de facto standard for the encryption of email. It is
published as free software, and has spread like dandelion seeds blowing
in the wind, fanned by the firestorm of controversy at government
efforts to suppress public access to strong cryptography. This has
caused conflict with the US National Security Agency's desire to
restrict the use of high-quality encryption, and he is being
investigated for possible violation of export controls on munitions.
Security Group Seminar, 1st November 1994 / Mark.Lomas@cl.cam.ac.uk