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I find it difficult to believe that there are people who know about RSA, but not about Adi Shamir.

Roritharr 13y ago
Here. Didn't know about about him but have used RSA quite often.
cantrevealname 13y ago
Do you recognize the names Robert McCool and Guido van Rossum? You might not know the names but they invented some important technologies that HN people use and respect (the original Apache server and the Python programming language, respectively). It would be hard to relate to a story that said "Robert McCool denied US visa" or "Guido van Rossum endured US visa hassles".
amirmc 13y ago
> I find it difficult to believe that there are people who know about RSA, but not about Adi Shamir. I've heard of RSA (and DSA) and come across it every time I've needed a key pair (e.g for GitHub) but never thought what the letters stood for. Finding out the name of one of the people behind it is news to me.
farmdawgnation 13y ago
As many others have already said, I, too, am one of those guilty parties.
vbuterin 13y ago
I personally learned about Shamir over a year after I first heard the name RSA. RSA is commonplace; every first-year computer science student knows how it works, and it's the easiest example of how to do public key cryptography. Shamir's other work in secret sharing and linear and differential cryptanalysis is slightly more obscure.
p4bl0 13y ago
I don't know why you were downvoted. I would have reacted just like you, but actually people replying to you raise a good point. I think it really depends on the type of work you are doing. People in research are used to cite other authors in their paper (and we even call a paper by it's author + conference/journal name, not by its actual title) and are thus more prone to remember the name of people behind technologies. It may very well be the case that in some other types of profession you don't do this association as easily.
thenomad 13y ago
Add me to the list of people who know of one, but not the other.

Here. Didn't know about about him but have used RSA quite often.

Do you recognize the names Robert McCool and Guido van Rossum? You might not know the names but they invented some important technologies that HN people use and respect (the original Apache server and the Python programming language, respectively). It would be hard to relate to a story that said "Robert McCool denied US visa" or "Guido van Rossum endured US visa hassles".

amirmc 13y ago

> I find it difficult to believe that there are people who know about RSA, but not about Adi Shamir. I've heard of RSA (and DSA) and come across it every time I've needed a key pair (e.g for GitHub) but never thought what the letters stood for. Finding out the name of one of the people behind it is news to me.

farmdawgnation 13y ago

As many others have already said, I, too, am one of those guilty parties.

vbuterin 13y ago

I personally learned about Shamir over a year after I first heard the name RSA. RSA is commonplace; every first-year computer science student knows how it works, and it's the easiest example of how to do public key cryptography. Shamir's other work in secret sharing and linear and differential cryptanalysis is slightly more obscure.

p4bl0 13y ago

I don't know why you were downvoted. I would have reacted just like you, but actually people replying to you raise a good point. I think it really depends on the type of work you are doing. People in research are used to cite other authors in their paper (and we even call a paper by it's author + conference/journal name, not by its actual title) and are thus more prone to remember the name of people behind technologies. It may very well be the case that in some other types of profession you don't do this association as easily.

thenomad 13y ago

Add me to the list of people who know of one, but not the other.