[Cryptography] The original "public" public key algorithm

[Bill Cox]

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 5:17 PM, Peter Palfrader <peter at palfrader.org> wrote:

>
> It seems you described a variant of Merkle's Puzzles.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle%27s_Puzzles
>
> Cheers
> --
>

Thanks for the link!  This mostly confirms the old legend.  Here's Merkel's
own page on it:

http://merkle.com/1974/

The details became fuzzy over time.  It was not a homework question, but a
proposal for a class project where Merkel basically invented public key
crypto.  He was an undergrad at Berkeley at the time.  His prof in fact
rejected the proposal.  Haha, that's just too funny.  I wonder if Merkel
knew that this legend continued to make it's rounds at Berkeley for many
years, losing his name, but keeping the algorithm basically intact.

Bill
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