In the past decade, cryptography has done more to damage the security of digital systems than it has to enhance it. Cryptography burst onto the world stage in the early 1990s as the securer of the Internet. Some saw cryptography as a great technological equalizer, a mathematical tool that would put the lowliest privacy-seeking individual on the same footing as the greatest national intelligence agencies. Some saw it as the weapon that would bring about the downfall of nations when governments lost the ability to police people in cyberspace. Others saw it as the perfect and terrifying tool of drug dealers, terrorists, and child pornographers, who would be able to communicate in perfect secrecy. Even those with more realistic attitudes imagined cryptography as a technology that would enable global commerce in this new online world. Ten years later, none of this has come to pass. Despite the prevalence of cryptography, the Internet?s national borders are more apparent than ever. The ability to detect and eavesdrop on criminal communications has more to do with politics and human resources than mathematics. Individuals still don?t stand a chance against powerful and well-funded government agencies. And the rise of global commerce had nothing to do with the prevalence of cryptography. For the most part, cryptography has done little more than give Internet users a false sense of security by promising security but not delivering it. And that?s not good for anyone except the attackers.