[Previous entry: "Comments"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Vignettes"]

11/26/2001 Archived Entry: "Crypto"

I've just finished reading a rather lengthy 'Introduction to Cryptography' PDF that was supplied with the PGP software I downloaded the other day. It went into considerably more depth than the scant knowledge I've picked up from various email and conversation exchanges, and reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (which is nonetheless a very good book). As a result, I'm feeling quite impressed with the whole PGP public/private key infrastructure and have learnt a few things about exactly how it goes about encrypting things with passphrases, private keys, hashes, session keys, secret keys - and then there's all the guff about certificates, signatures, webs of trust and all the rest. Unfortunately, I still don't really know how to use the program and have yet to figure out how to decrypt a message - but that's probably not my fault but my importing the wrong public key or something.

Cycling back from a neurobiology lecture about spatial and episodic memory in the hippocampus tonight, I screeched to a halt at the top of a bridge overlooking a part of the backs (the mini-river that people punt on in Cambridge) and saw streamers of mist floating over the surface of the water, lit up by Trinity Hall. With a perfectly clear sky, a large moon and the stars above, the effect was wonderful.