CHAPTER 11

THE KNAPSACK CRYPTOSYSTEM

THE MERKLE-HELLMAN knapsack system was the first example of a public key cryptographic system. Although the trap-door knapsack problem did not live up to its promises of being “computationally infeasible” to solve, it was a major cryptographic achievement. This chapter examines the contribution and the remarkably elegant cryptanalysis of the Merkle–Hellman system by Adi Shamir.

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