Public cryptography outlook

Abstract

Ten years ago last March, the National Bureau of Standards issued its first solicitation for an algorithm to be used in public cryptography. While significant progress has been made in the development of the technology in this field, the public's use of cryptography has proceeded more slowly than some had originally expected. Yet, looking back, it seems surprising that anyone would have thought that public cryptography could have developed any faster than it has. When the DES was published as a standard in January, 1977, the private and non-classified government communities knew little about cryptography and its capabilities. Open publications were primarily academic papers, and consequently the public had a poor understanding of what problems cryptography could solve and what problems were beyond its scope.