Revolution of civilisation and information security

It was not until the 1970s that cryptography emerged from its modern period and entered its post-modern age. In Japan, research on post-modern cryptography did not become active until about 1980 and even then, the understanding of most electronic and computer engineers remained on the classical and modern levels for more than a few years. Looking back, I feel deeply that cryptography researchers have worked hard under difficult circumstances. In saying this, I am not patting myself on the back. Researchers in academic organisations, although recognised as working in an extremely narrow field, have been able to enjoy and appreciate the structural beauty and elegance of cryptography. The researchers I would like to reward are those who work in the industry, where profit making is given first priority. It is through their hard work and dedication that we have at last managed to emerge from a dark tunnel and arrive at a sunny square where we now stand together. The rapid spread of the Internet has opened the eyes of many people to the importance of cryptography, for example, in its use of authentication of electronic transactions, systems for tele-medicine and so on. In this paper, I will first discuss the issue of why information security technology is becoming a social infrastructure, from the standpoint of structural transformations of civilisation and conceptual changes of culture arising from the trends in personalisation of information networks and vanishing borders. Next, I will examine the changes in paradigms in cryptography from the classical and modern to the post-modern. From this I will move on to the problems that the trend of vanishing borders in information networks will present to us in the next century. The first half of the century will probably be spent trying to overcome disagreements among nations during internationalisation. Taking up cryptographic technology as a part of this problem, we will compare differences between American and Japanese culture.