8.2 Introduction
In the Codes and Other Secrets chapter, we studied several algorithms for encrypting secret messages. One of the most secure algorithms for encryption today is called RSA, named after its authors—Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. RSA is used by your web browser when you make a secure connection to your bank and when you shop online at your favorite store. Obviously, any encryption technique that is widely used for such sensitive data will be the target of many attacks. If someone learned how to break RSA, that person could easily steal many bank account numbers and passwords.
In this chapter, we focus on the field of code breaking, known as cryptanalysis. Of course, the study of breaking codes is as old as the field ...
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