A panel of cryptography experts gathered at the Computer History Museum last night to remember 30 years of public key cryptography. The panel included Whitfield Diffie, PhD, Martin Hellman, PhD, Ray Ozzie, Dan Boneh, PhD, Brian Snow, Jim Bidzos.

A audio podcast of the event can be heard here.

Snow, former chief scientist of the NSA -

Snow … acknowledged that public needs public-key cryptography but the government may not have wanted the public to have it.

That’s a bit of an understatement! Just read the cypherpunk archives from the 1990’s. Look at the fight they put up against Phil Zimmerman and Pretty Good Privacy if you need an example.