Éditorial

Abstract

It is with great pleasure that I see this special issue devoted to Russian research in cryptology and information and systems security achieved and published. A longstanding project, the aimwas to contribute to raising awareness ofRussian research activity, which is unfortunately not sufficiently known in the Western world. Russian science, a prisoner of a tongue little known and unfamiliar to the rest of the world, is nevertheless extraordinarily rich, powerful, rigorous and refined. Science and research shouldmake it possible to better understand our universe and nature—a mathematical function or an algorithm are ultimately natural objects that we are trying to understand. Above all they should offer a common language for all humanity. However it is sad to note that they still remain too compartmentalized by political considerations that separate rather than bring people together. I am equally happy and grateful to Drs. Ekaterina Griboedova and Vasily Shishkin, two eminent cryptologists, members of the Russian Technical Committee “Cryptography and Information Security” (TC 26) of the Russian governmental standardization organization (Rosstandart, GOST R) for accepting our invitation to write an article on the process of standardization in cryptology in the Russian Federation. A French MP, Mr Bernard Carayon, Rapporteur on defense issues at the French National Assembly, claimed at the SSTIC 2004 conference that a country’s power lies in its ability to impose norms and standards. With the implicit corollary that the weakness of other countries lies in the imposition of foreign standards. Alas, the whole drama of Europe is summed up here. Almost all the security standards that Europe uses come from the United States and in the near future some of its standards will probably also be Chinese. The agenda—economic, strategic, political—of these two countries in no way coincides with that of European countries and the rest of the world. In the field of security and especially in the field of cryptology—the most sensitive part of security—the situation since the end of the Second World War can be summed up as the control of cryptog-