🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1465900005@igc.apc.org>, Dan Yurman <dyurman@igc.apc.org> writes:
>
>I would appreciate pointers to books which explain how to
>understand public key / private key systems.  Also, I would
>appreciate pointers to any MS-DOS implementations either as
>shareware or commercial products.  As you can tell, I am
>new to this field so elementary sources are better. Thanks.

PGP, a derivative of the RSA public key system, is available for anonymous
ftp from gatekeeper.dec.com under the /pub/micros/msdos/pgp directory.
The documentation included (pgpguide.lst) with it is a good introduction to
public key systems (RSA in particular).

If you want to get into the mathematics of one-way functions, I suggest the
article "The Mathematics of Public Key Cryptography", by Martin E. Hellman,
_Scientific American_ (August 1978?).  There was also a "Mathematical Games"
column (by Martin Gardner) in 1977 or 1978 that dealt with the subject.

Keith Lewis             klewis@mitre.org          "Mr. Cheap"
I don't dance to music; music dances to me.  Email me for my PGP key.
The above may not (yet) represent the opinions of my employer.