In 1999 Neal Stephenson explained Bitcoin to the world a decade before it was invented.
Cryptonomicon is set in two time periods:
One group of characters include World War II Allied codebreakers and tactical-deception operatives affiliated with the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, and disillusioned Axis military and intelligence figures.
The second narrative is set in the late 1990s, with characters that are descendants of those in the earlier time period.
They employ cryptographically secured computer networks to build an underground data haven.
Their long-term objective is to distribute Holocaust Education and Avoidance Pod (HEAP) media to instruct genocide-targeted populations on defensive warfare.
A period of financial crisis in East Asia beginning in July 1997 that raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion.
The crisis started in Thailand with the financial collapse of the Thai baht after the Thai government was forced to float the baht due to lack of foreign currency to support its currency peg to the U.S. dollar.
At the time, Thailand had acquired a burden of foreign debt that made the country effectively bankrupt even before the collapse of its currency.
Effects of the crises in Southeast Asia and Japan included:
Although most of the governments of Asia had seemingly sound fiscal policies, the IMF injected $40 billion to stabilize the currencies of the economies hit hardest the crisis.
The efforts to stem a global economic crisis did little to stabilize the domestic situation in Indonesia. President Suharto was forced to step down after 30 years in power in the wake of widespread rioting following price increases caused by a drastic devaluation of the rupiah.
Growth in the Philippines dropped to virtually zero in 1998. By 1999, however, the economies of Asia were beginning to recover.
Until 1999 Asia attracted almost half of the total capital inflow into developing countries.
The economies of Southeast Asia in particular maintained high interest rates attractive to foreign investors looking for a high rate of return.
As a result, the region's economies received a large inflow of money and experienced a dramatic run-up in asset prices.
At the same time, the regional economies of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and South Korea experienced high growth rates, of 8–12% GDP, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
This achievement was widely acclaimed by financial institutions including the IMF and World Bank, and was known as part of the "Asian economic miracle".
Cryptographic algorithm designed by Bruce Schneier at the request of Stephenson.
Used by agents to communicate securely without having to rely on electronics or incriminating tools.
Designed to be a manual cryptosystem calculated with a deck of playing cards.
It is called Pontifex in the novel to hide the fact that it involves playing cards.
The algorithm generates a stream of values that are combined with the message to encrypt/decrypt. Each value of the keystream is to be used for one value of the message, thus the keystream will need to be the same length as the message.
In a totalitarian environment a deck of cards is more affordable (and less incriminating) than a personal computer with an array of cryptological utilities.
Schneier warns any potential users in the Appendix that just about everyone with an interest in cryptanalysis (like government surveillance agencies) will know about this algorithm.
A form of eavesdropping using special equipment to pick up side-band electromagnetic emissions from electronics devices. Phreaking is the process of exploiting telephone networks, used here because of its connection to eavesdropping.
These emissions correlate to hidden signals and can be recreated in order to spy on the electronic device.
Side-band electromagnetic radiation emissions can be captured from keyboards, computer displays, printers, and other electronic devices.
Dutch researcher Wim van Eck published the first paper on it in 1985.
Van Eck phreaking might be used to compromise the secrecy of votes in an election using electronic voting.
