Dear Readers,
Awaiting the onset of winter, I am sending this year end issue of Cipher as the deadline for papers for the 2014 Security and Privacy Symposium recedes into the past. This means that the program committee can warm themselves by feasting on the technical content of the finest security research on the planet, readying a stellar program for next May in San Jose, California.
Our book reviewer Richard Austin takes us further afield than is his usual want by tackling a book about the fundamental notions of war and how they do or do not apply to the cyber realm. This may seem esoteric, but at some future time we may well have to decide when a cyber attack warrants a physical response. Will the public be educated enough to understand the issues amidst rhetoric?
As for the news, there seems no end to the Snowden revelations, and the technology underlying government surveillance seems as interesting and varied as the Internet itself. What hath NSA wrought?
People who transmit on glass fibers shouldn't get stoned,