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The Crypto Wars of the 90s
Nice cryptocurrencies, but how did we get to this point? The story behind the most important piece holding up the world of blockchain and p2p protocols
At the core of cryptocurrencies there is a simple but fundamental concept that allows for open source and transparent protocols: asymmetric or public key cryptography. Public key cryptography is fundamental in a P2P environment because it allows us to certify that a message was sent by a specific person who possesses the specific private key. What public key cryptography does, in a nutshell, is mathematically prove that a certain person possesses a certain key.
What few people know is that in the 1990s there was a real war by institutions on asymmetric cryptography especially for those used for national security. In particular, the United States Security Agency, or NSA, classified asymmetric cryptography as a weapon against the country, making it illegal and imposing strong limits to its use.
There were several attempts to crack asymmetric encryption and thus compromise the way the math was used by a piece of software, but they all…
