> What is more crazy is that RSA (or something comparable to that) was discovered in parallel also by another mathematician working for a government agency 4 ye

> What is more crazy is that RSA (or something comparable to that) was discovered in parallel also by another mathematician working for a government agency 4 years prior to the RSA algo That story is great - he was a new grad and given it as an exercise by his mentor. He wasn't allowed to write anything down at home so he worked it out entirely in his head that evening.