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"Mr. Kohn was referring to the National Security Agency, the arm of the Pentagon that develops and breaks the complex algorithms that are used to keep the most secret electronic secrets secret"

Funny how this needed explaining back then. The story was also accidentally right, the NSA was indeed breaking those "complex algorithms" already during development!

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I found it funny how much of everything in this article needed explaining. Cryptography and NSA sure. But also the very concept of online retail, computer operating systems, the word "algorithm", a web browser, the web itself, etc., etc. So startling when so much of this is now so pervasive among regular people. Today's general public NYT readership might need some brief explanation of the finer points, but could be assumed to have some passing familiarity with all of it. Hell, that might have even been largely the case five years after this article.

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