Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cca!mirror!prism!billc
From: billc@prism.TMC.COM
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: RSA Discussion and Speculation
Message-ID: <201000012@prism>
Date: 30 Mar 88 15:53:00 GMT
References: <6053@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Lines: 28
Nf-ID: #R:watdragon.waterloo.edu:-605300:prism:201000012:000:1379
Nf-From: prism.TMC.COM!billc    Mar 30 10:53:00 1988


-Has anyone put forth any alleged weaknesses of the RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman)
-Public Key Cryptosystem?  Is it possible that RSA is unconditionally secure
-for keys longer than (the square of) the block length if these keys are chosen 
-with certain number-theoretic considerations in mind?  
-
-By unconditionally secure I mean that deducing the key is computationally
-tantamount to exploring every possible ciphertext for a given plaintext,
-i.e.  the 'randomness' in the key equals or exceeds that in the plaintext.

	I believe that breaking RSA is equivalent to factoring the
	products of large primes.  Right now, that task is "hard," to
	put it loosely, as far as we know.  Now, if someone can find a
	way to easily factor large composites, RSA is in trouble.

-Since RSA is mathematically-founded, is anyone working on integrating error
-correction into the scheme? 

	It wouldn't be difficult to do.  Take the plaintext and generate
	the cyphertext, then send (or record) the cyphertext using an
	error correcting code, like a Hamming Code, for example.  Then,
	on the other side, decode the error correcting code to get the
	cyphertext, then decode the cyphertext into plaintext.

Bill Callahan	617-661-0777
Mirror Systems	2067 Massachusetts Avenue  Cambridge, MA, 02140
	billc@mirror.TMC.COM
        UUCP   :  {mit-eddie, pyramid, wjh12, cca, datacube}!mirror!billc