Cryptography Issues in the Modern World

``Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."

- Henry Lewis Stimson

"You have zero privacy anyway, get over it."

- Scott McNealy, CEO Sun Microsystems

In most societies, there is an ever-constant struggle between the expanding capabilities created by new and improved technologies and the force of law that restrains, regulates, and makes such advancements safe for society as a whole. Cryptography is an ancient technology that has matured rapidly in the last twenty years such that, despite its age, it is increasingly becoming a fault line for the schism between the individual need to protect one's privacy and the state's need to protect both individuals and themselves. The capabilities of today's cryptosystems present a new source of power for both governments and individuals: individuals have enhanced powers to keep secrets hidden from the government, and the state has new powers to keep their secrets safe from the individual. The power of modern encryption creates a struggle where both the individual and the state is working to limit the technological power of the other.