Rivest, Shamir and Adleman: the RSA cryptosystem

What changed

Constructed paired public and secret operations through exponentiation modulo a composite integer, providing methods for public-key encryption and digital signatures.

Scientific scope

Constructed paired public and secret operations through exponentiation modulo a composite integer, providing methods for public-key encryption and digital signatures. Scope limitation: The work dates to 1978; the inspected copy is a 1983 reprint. Raw RSA arithmetic is not a modern secure protocol or padding scheme, and the paper does not prove full equivalence between security and integer factorization.

Evidence

Assessment uses the catalogue-linked source evidence for the stated contribution. The work dates to 1978; the inspected copy is a 1983 reprint. Raw RSA arithmetic is not a modern secure protocol or padding scheme, and the paper does not prove full equivalence between security and integer factorization.

Contributors

• Ronald L. Rivest · SCIENCE: Named source contributor; exact labor shares are not measured.
• Adi Shamir · SCIENCE: Named source contributor; exact labor shares are not measured.
• Leonard M. Adleman · SCIENCE: Named source contributor; exact labor shares are not measured.

• Rivest, Shamir and Adleman, A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems (1978), author-hosted 1983 reprint

Provisional WRS assessment, edition 2026-10-16.1. Independent expert calibration is pending. This grade does not certify correctness or assign ownership.

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