Cryptography · 1976 · Whitfield Diffie & Martin E. Hellman
New Directions in Cryptography
Reframe key distribution through public information and computational asymmetry, opening public-key exchange and digital signatures.
The central move
Reframe key distribution through public information and computational asymmetry, opening public-key exchange and digital signatures.
Why it had to exist
Symmetric systems required communicating a secret before secure communication could begin. Large networks made pairwise secret distribution an operational bottleneck.
Where it leads
Public-key exchange → authenticated protocols → TLS, secure messaging, and distributed identity.