
How Two Men Unlocked Modern Encryption - markmassie
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/how-two-men-unlocked-modern-encryption/380520/
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leonk
The history of public key encryption, and of encryption in general is covered
pretty well in this book: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Code-Book-History-Code-
breaking/...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Code-Book-History-Code-
breaking/dp/1857028899/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411468754&sr=8-1&keywords=the+code+book)

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joelanders
Steven Levy's _Crypto_ (referenced in the article) is quite good (as is
everything he writes).

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B5geek
I will second this recommendation. I was about 1/3 of the way through the book
before I realized it was a 'historical' book and not a fiction.

I have in the many years since I read this one, become quite the fan of all
his works.

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rurban
Typically the Atlantic fails to mention Ralph Merkle the actual inventor of
DH. But since he was just a student who went to his professors with that
concept, they published the paper. Read about it:
[http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/107353](http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/107353)
"if you’re going to put names on it, it should be called Diffie-Hellman-Merkle
key exchange, since it’s actually based on a concept of Merkle’s. We give him
credit for that in the paper, but it was in a paper by Diffie and Hellman, so
it’s called Diffie-Hellman key exchange."

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RachelF
Actually, it was invented six years earlier by the British GCHQ, but remained
classified until 1997.

One wonders what marvels are still classified...

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drzaiusapelord
I think its fair for you to sign away your right to claim invention if you're
doing top secret work. Its not like GCHQ would ever have pushed public key
into civilian service, so its almost a moot point. This whole black-ops world
of "Oh, we knew that" shouldn't be rewarded.

If major innovations are being done behind closed doors, then we're doing
something wrong. Why should we reward these organizations that poach the best
and the brightest and drain tax dollars that could be used for more
constructive things? There's something almost perverse about the research arms
of intelligence services. Its the opposite of the idea of open academic paper
publishing and if they continue to snap up all the best talent, of course the
academic world won't be able to keep up. Imagine if the government had a
secret soccer team that would draft the top three players every year. How
competitive would the civilian team be? What, if any, credit should we give
the government team?

Maybe some disincentives like these would make some people think twice about
getting in bed with the NSA or the GCHQ. Sure, you'll make some real money,
maybe work on some interesting problems, but if you do something amazing your
name won't be known.

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ecesena
> If you've ever made a financial transaction of any sort over the internet or
> used a Blackberry

a little bit silly... especially the link to the Blackberry...

