The role of cryptography in global communications
Tom Parker · Network Security · 1996
Since the days of Julius Caesar, cryptography has been used for scrambling information as it is transmitted over insecure channels, whether the channel has been a physical one, such as a runner carrying written message through hostile territory, or whether it has been an electronic one, such as telegraphic, radio or computer message. This article describes how it is now being used in computer systems in new ways in support of securing global computer communications.