Here are the biggest breakthroughs in cryptography during the period when the NSA has been the purported leader in the field, and has enjoyed by far the largest budget: [ list of major breakthroughs deleted. ] For all their vaunted competence, for all the mathematicians they have been alleged to employ, despite having a cryptography budget orders of magnitude larger than any other Western crypto group, it looks like the NSA contribued to _none_ of the major advances in cryptography that occured during its zenith. My understanding is that we don't *know* what NSA actually has found. For example, *someone* knew about differential cryptanalysis long before Adi Shamir rediscovered it, as the DES S-boxes are optimized against it. Similarly, they may have discovered public-key encryption fifty years ago and simply not bothered to patent/publish it.... - Patrick p.s. Any other cypherpunks heading to ACL this week? If so, look me up (Patrick Juola, U. of Colorado) and we can go grab a brew or something and discuss the state of the world.... pmj