7 ms·
"We've heard a good bit in this courtroom about public key encryption," said Albright. "Are you familiar with that?" "Yes, I am," said Diffie, in what surely q
by mabbo 11y ago
"We've heard a good bit in this courtroom about public key encryption," said Albright. "Are you familiar with that?"
"Yes, I am," said Diffie, in what surely qualified as the biggest understatement of the trial.
"And how is it that you're familiar with public key encryption?"
"I invented it."
- atmosx 11y agoepic :-)
- pc86 11y agoSo the public key encryption equivalent of referring to TBL as "Web Developer" :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Cyph0n 11y agoHoly damn that must have felt good haha.
- ignoramous 11y agoHere's another interesting bit: Then Fenster dropped this bombshell: "Dr. Diffie, you were not the first to invent public key cryptography, were you?" "I believe that I may have been," said Diffie, speaking cautiously. "But perhaps you could be more specific?" "In fact, a gentleman named James Ellis in England invented it before you, right?" Diffie sighed. He seemed, suddenly, almost tired. He had heard this one before. "I spent a lot of time talking to James Ellis, and I can't figure it out," he said. "James Ellis did very fine work."
- brunoqc 11y agoI don't get it. Care to explain?
- icelancer 11y agoEllis conceived of practical public-key crypto PRIOR to Diffie but it was classified at GCHQ. Diffie wanted to know how Ellis invented it after he had heard this was the case.
- solidangle 11y agoPublic-key encryption was supposedly invented at GCHQ by James Ellis, Clifford Cocks and Malcolm Williamson in 1975, one year before Diffie and Hellman published their paper. The work had to be kept secret though, so they never published it.
- DanBC 11y ago1973. Why the "supposedly"?
- _mhr_ 11y agoMy guess is that if it was not published at the time of discovery, there's no way to know for sure whether Ellis actually invented it before Diffie and Hellman.
- deckar01 11y agoThe irony is that such a scheme for publicly disclosing proof you have a piece of data without immediately publishing the data requires public key cryptography and digital signatures to be public knowledge. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
- PakG1 11y agoThis is just like the thing between Newton and Leibniz on who invented calculus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz–Newton_calculus_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz–Newton_calculus_contro...
- drjesusphd 11y ago
- shmerl 11y agoYeah, that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this title :)