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From: misha@cernvax.UUCP (misha)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: non-RSA public-key encryption systems
Message-ID: <498@cernvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Jul-87 06:04:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: cernvax.498
Posted: Tue Jul  7 06:04:22 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 01:30:30 EDT
References: <8248@utzoo.UUCP] <8457@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: misha@cernvax.UUCP ()
Distribution: world
Organization: CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 23

In article <8457@linus.UUCP> bs@linus.UUCP (Robert D. Silverman) writes:
>In article <8248@utzoo.UUCP] henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>]Anybody know of a reasonably good public-key encryption system which has
>]not been broken like the knapsack algorithm and is not patented like RSA?
>]We have an urgent application for such a thing, and I would rather avoid
> 
>It doesn't exist.
>
>Bob Silverman

What about Michael Rabin's scheme? It is possibly more secure than RSA
since Rabin proves it to be as intractable as factorization. Like RSA,
the scheme involves a number n=p*q, a product of two large primes, but
encryption and decryption functions are different. Also, they are a lot 
faster to compute. 
The scheme is described in MIT note MIT/LCS/TR-212 of January 1979.

In fact, Rabin's scheme seems to be a clear winner over RSA, and I haven't 
heard of anybody finding flaws in it or applying for a patent. Anybody has
more information?

Michael Kharitonov
misha@cernvax.bitnet