Lectures from the authors of RSA available online (Turing Award 2002)
What normal people usually do on Sunday evening? I bet that anything except reading the recent issue of ACM "Software Engineering Notes" ;-) One cool fact that the latest issue mentions is that ACM’s 2002 Turing Award lecture materials are now online. Three presentations from the authors of RSA encryption algorithm are available:
- Dr. Leonard M. Adleman on "Pre RSA Days"
- Dr. Ronald L. Rivest on "Early Days of RSA"
- Dr. Adi Shamir on "Cryptology: A Status Report"
If you have been ever fascinated about the cryptology and related security issues, I would strongly recommend viewing these talks.
One piece of information (which is also mentioned in this talk) many security enthusiasts may not know is that two of the most famous public key encryption methods: Diffie-Hellman protocol and RSA weren’t actually discovered by the people by whom the protocols are named ;-) Both Ross Anderson’s "Security Engineering" and Steven Levy’s "Crypto" give credit to the following GCHQ employees: James Ellis, Malcolm Williamson, and Clifford Cocks. Check these books or Wikipedia for more information and longer explanations.