looking for famous RSA code paper!

Ted Johnson tedj at hpcilzb.HP.COM
Tue Aug 16 04:04:23 AEST 1988


This is a borderline unix question...

I'm looking for a paper and was wondering if anyone could
give me some pointers.

It's the famous RSA paper.  Below is a quote from the new
version of Ted Nelson's Computer Lib/Dream Machines book (pages 164-
167) that describes the paper I'm interested in.

If anyone can e-mail me this paper (or we can make other
arrangements...), I'd appreciate it a lot!  Thanks!

-Ted

---------------------cut here-----------------------------------------

>From the above book (reprinted w/out permission):

"As Rivest, Shamir and Adleman were preparing to send out the paper,
they received a notification that they had better not.  The order came
from an official of the National Security Agency, J.A. Meyer.

Now everything hit the fan.

It seemed clear to a lot of people that the government (and the Spooks
to boot) were attempting to THWART FOREVER any hope of privacy and 
freedom in the future.

People sprang into action.  Already a few copies of the paper by Rivest,
Shamir and Adleman had been handed out; brave souls throughout the
country got busy duplicating these, and sending them out to whomever
they thought might care.  Hundreds of researchers and concerned computerfolk
got plain brown envelopes in which the details of the RSA code (for
Rivest, Shamir and Adleman) were explained.

Rivest, Shamir and Adleman did not get into trouble; and because that cat
was already out of the bag, the government backed off, and allowed the
paper to be published.  But THEREAFTER, under a "gentlemen's agreement",
all articles on codes have been checked with government agents, and
published only with permission.

So basically nobody in the academic world can publish articles on codes
any more, and a spook from the NSA attends every session on Number Theory
at mathematical meetings."



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