In this book, Curtin recounts his involvement in the DESCHALL Project, mobilizing thousands of personal computers in 1997 in order to meet the challenge to crack a single message encrypted with DES.[1]
This was and remains one of the largest collaborations of any kind on a single project in history.
The message was unencrypted on June 18 and was found to be "Strong cryptography makes the world a safer place."
This is also the message of Curtin's book where he uses a personal account to reveal to the uninitiated reader some insight into a topic of growing importance which is both technically and politically complicated.
