works in Apple's security group. Mac OS X makes use of some encryption algos known as elliptical algorithms. I don't know too much about it but he tells me they use C++ to do the algos - but its not OO programming - its ADT programming and its a fairly simple and well defined piece of capability. Encrypt/Decrypt with a key. They get good speed relative to their size expense - much of this is due to aggressive use of inlining.

So there's a good domain for C++.