This chapter covers:
- What theoretical cryptography primitives are making their way into applied cryptography.
- The different places where issues arise in the use of cryptography.
- The dangers and responsibilities of being a cryptography practitioner.
Congratulations if you’ve read this far along. If you’re skipping to the end, don’t worry, there is something valuable for everyone in this last chapter. Just don’t stop now, as this contains the last instructions to read before you can run freely.
First, I want to use these last pages to give you a glimpse of the future, a future where cryptography looks different. There are many areas of research in cryptography, some are highly theoretical and will probably never find an application, some others will end up being broken or forgotten forever, but a few of them are reaching a point where they are piercing through the thick wall that exists between theoretical and applied cryptography. These theoretical cryptographic primitives are becoming more and more practical, or are finding new ways to be useful in the real world. For this reason, I’d like to give you some idea of what applied cryptography might look like in the next 10 to 20 years.