tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson) (08/16/88)
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."