From: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 18:27:08 -0800 (PST)
To: cryptography@c2.net
Subject: UK spooks invent RSA, DH in 1973
Message-ID: <88232561207378@cs26.cs.auckland.ac.nz>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


There's an interesting paper at http://www.cesg.gov.uk/ellisint.htm which 
claims that UK spooks invented both RSA and DH in 1973 and 1974 respectively.
The summary info is:

>This paper by James Ellis was written in 1987. It was commissioned shortly 
>after his retirement to provide a first-hand historical account of the early 
>work by James and others in CESG, discovering the techniques that were later 
>to become known as Public Key Cryptography. Although there would have been
>some academic interest in the paper back in 1987, it was decided on balance 
>to keep the record internal and accordingly the paper was given a low
>classification and retained within CESG. 
>
>Since 1987 there have been three aspects which have created enormous changes 
>for CESG. First, the growth in the need for secure communications for 
>confidentiality and authentication has vastly increased key management 
>requirements. Second, the increase in processing speed has enabled large 
>arithmetical computations to be practicable. Third, the 1994 RPS gave CESG 
>responsibility for the communications security of the entire UK government 
>market. PKC is now seen as the best if not the only method for allowing wide 
>area many-user secure communications. With this increase in CESG's external 
>visibility there has been a growing desire for greater openness.
>
>During the past 11 years there had been no urgency to publish the paper, but 
>the necessary spark came when Clifford Cocks solved an important problem that 
>had been highlighted at a recent 'RSA' conference. Cliff is presenting this 
>solution in a paper at the IMA Conference on Cryptography and Coding in
>Cirencester. Since he was one of the main contributors to our early work it 
>was clearly the right opportunity to set the record straight. As the paper 
>was being prepared for publication we heard that James had become very ill. 
>He died before the paper was published. We now publish it as a testament to 
>his imaginative and ground-breaking work.

(The paper was mentioned on a UK crypto list, but I've lost the original 
 reference).

Peter.