[4406] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Biprime Cryptography to replace RSA?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Arnold G. Reinhold)
Tue Mar 30 12:52:05 1999
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 11:27:32 -0500
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>
At 5:27 PM -0800 3/29/99, John Gilmore wrote:
>
>Now that their patent is getting ready to expire (next fall), RSA is
>trying to crack down on anyone who refers to the use of the
>algorithm by calling it "RSA".
...
>
>Perhaps we should have a little contest for what to call the RSA
>algorithm, given RSA's objection to calling a shovel a spade.
>
I would propose "Biprime Cryptography" or "BPC" as the generic term for
RSA. Biprime is a natural and appropriate English name for the product of
two primes. Compare it with bicycle, biped, or bifocal. Biprime
Cryptography sounds distinctive and is somewhat self-explanitory. It also
leads to simpler language for discussing the algorithm's components. One
can talk about someone's public BPC key as their public biprime or just
their biprime. Their secret BPC key could also be their secret biprime
factor or just their secret factor. The underlying security rests, in part,
on the difficulty of factoring biprimes. And so on.
If RSADSI no longer wishes the public to honor their founders, we might as
well choose a descriptive name.
Arnold Reinhold
