Thesis ID: CBB882929007

Trading on Trust: Cryptographic Authentication and Digital Decentralization in the United States, 1968–2000 (2021)

unapi

This dissertation describes the political and technical history of digital cryptographic authentication technologies in the United States in the latter decades of the twentieth century. It traces how developers of electronic authentication technologies contended with the problem of trust in economic transactions. Through a series of historical case studies, the dissertation shows how the field of public cryptography and the political project of decentralization were embedded in broader societal expectations of trust. The dissertation chronicles public debates over the development of Electronic Fund Transfers and the Data Encryption Standard in the 1970s and the Escrowed Encryption Standard and the use of digital certificates in the transactional Internet in the 1990s. The research draws on archival materials from computer scientists, policymakers, consumer and civil rights advocates, technical standards-setting bodies, and industry leaders. This work locates trust within the history of digital technologies as a shifting historical category that was remade through political and technological contestation.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB882929007/

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Authors & Contributors
Samuel Greengard
McDonald, Christopher Felix
Zook, Matthew
Yost, Jeffrey R.
Umpleby, Stuart A.
Turner, Fred
Concepts
Computer networks
Computers and computing
Technology and society
Technology
Internet
Computer science
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Romania
France
Institutions
United States Navy
National Science Foundation (U.S.)
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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