Diffie-HellmanĪt the highest level, RSA works similar to Diffie-Hellman by exchanging public information that is then used to establish a secret key known only to the participants. The battle between surveillance and privacy is ongoing, but the mathematical underpinning of algorithms like RSA means that small organizations and individuals have the power to secure their communications from prying eyes, even against state actors. government, led by the NSA, were in an uproar about this sudden explosion of unreadable communication. Predictably, the security agencies of the U.S. (And with the advent of PGP in the 1990’s, it became simple.) With the advent of Diffie-Hellman and RSA, secure communications between individuals became practicable. This was due to the high cost of maintaining key infrastructure associated with symmetric algorithms. Previously, secure communications was the exclusive domain of sovereign states or global corporations. The RSA algorithm, along with Diffie-Hellman, stars in one of the more fascinating chapters of technology’s impact on society. This article describes how RSA works at a practical level. Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman were inspired by the Diffie-Hellman paper to conceive of a new but related way to achieve public key, or asymmetric, encryption. The algorithm they came up with became known by their initials: RSA. The trio devised a way to negotiate secure communication between unknown parties over distance, which turns out to be centrally important to the operations of the internet. Hot on the heels of Diffie-Hellman upending the cryptography applecart in 1976 came three more crypto newcomers that further revolutionized the field: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman.
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