Historical perspective on the cryptography technology: its primordial form in classical Sanskrit literature

摘要

The status of cryptography is often offered as the national security issue. Such viewpoint fails to explain the status and history of non-governmental or personal use of cryptography. Today all Internet users in all countries can access to uniform strong cryptographic technology. It is neither the first time nor the last time. This situation is similar as the cryptography technology in pre-modern. Reading the description of Kamasutra and its commentaries, we examine the original form of non-governmental secret writing and the similarities to the 21st century. We also reports the resent studies on the history of cryptography by Sanskrit researchers.