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What are the Alternatives to RSA?
Answer:
Many other public-key cryptosystems have been proposed, as a look through the proceedings of the annual Crypto, Eurocrypt, and Asiacrypt conferences quickly reveals. Some of the public-key cryptosystems will be discussed in previous Question.
A mathematical problem called the knapsack problem was the basis for several systems, but these have lost favor because several versions were broken. Another system, designed by ElGamal, is based on the discrete logarithm problem. The ElGamal system was, in part, the basis for several later signature methods, including one by Schnorr [Sch90], which in turn was the basis for DSS, the Digital Signature Standard. The ElGamal system has been used successfully in applications; it is slower for encryption and verification than RSA and its signatures are larger than RSA signatures.
In 1976, before RSA, Diffie and Hellman proposed a system for key exchange only; it permits secure exchange of keys in an otherwise conventional secret-key system. This system is in use today.
A mathematical problem called the knapsack problem was the basis for several systems, but these have lost favor because several versions were broken. Another system, designed by ElGamal, is based on the discrete logarithm problem. The ElGamal system was, in part, the basis for several later signature methods, including one by Schnorr [Sch90], which in turn was the basis for DSS, the Digital Signature Standard. The ElGamal system has been used successfully in applications; it is slower for encryption and verification than RSA and its signatures are larger than RSA signatures.
In 1976, before RSA, Diffie and Hellman proposed a system for key exchange only; it permits secure exchange of keys in an otherwise conventional secret-key system. This system is in use today.
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