From root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Fri Aug 16 15:32:14 1996 Received: from MIT.EDU (SOUTH-STATION-ANNEX.MIT.EDU [18.72.1.2]) by bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU (8.6.13/2.3JIK) with SMTP id PAA14545; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:32:09 -0400 Received: from [192.48.96.15] by MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA07343; Fri, 16 Aug 96 15:30:49 EDT Received: from ngeout01.news.aol.com by relay5.UU.NET with SMTP (peer crosschecked as: ngeout01.news.aol.com [152.163.176.244]) id QQbdba12287; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:30:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from newsbf02.news.aol.com (newsbf02.mail.aol.com [152.163.172.50]) by ngeout01.news.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA04289 for ; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:34:19 -0400 Received: by newsbf02.news.aol.com (1.38.193.5/16.2) id AA18170; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:30:43 -0400 Posted-Date: 16 Aug 1996 15:30:33 -0400 Received-Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:30:43 -0400 To: news-answers@uunet.uu.net Path: newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: rsamaven@aol.com (RSAMaven) Newsgroups: news.answers Subject: RSA Laboratories FAQ - Part 5 Date: 16 Aug 1996 15:30:33 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 337 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-Id: <4v2i8p$hn3@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: rsamaven@aol.com (RSAMaven) ************************************************************************** *************** RSA Laboratories Frequently Asked Questions v3.0 - This is the latest FAQ available on Cryptography from RSA, please ignore all others. You can refer to the HTML version at : HTTP://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/newfaq/ or you can download the FAQ in Adobe Acrobat version from our website: HTTP://www.rsa.com/PUBS/ If you have any questions or comments, please email : webmaven@rsa.com faq-editor@rsa.com ************************************************************************** ************* Question 32. What are Knapsack Cryptosystems? The Merkle-Hellman knapsack cryptosystem [MH78] is a public-key cryptosystem that was first published in 1978. It is commonly referred to as the knapsack cryptosystem. It is based on the subset sum problem in combinatorics. The problem involves selecting a number of objects with given weights from a large set such that the sum of the weights is equal to a pre-specified weight. This is considered to be a difficult problem to [remainder of text deleted by folder-shrink.pl]