Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Rivest, Shamir and Adleman built a system in 1977 whose security rests on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a technology fact?

Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

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RSA made public key encryption practical

Rivest, Shamir and Adleman built a system in 1977 whose security rests on the difficulty of factoring large numbers Each user publishes a modulus and an exponent, keeping a matching private exponent that only they know. Encrypting with the public key can be undone only with the private one, and the same trick signs a message. Clifford Cocks had described an equivalent scheme inside British intelligence in 1973, but it stayed secret until 1997. It sits in Mondo's technology collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Britannica

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: encryption, cryptography, mathematics

RSA made public key encryption practical: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Rivest, Shamir and Adleman built a system in 1977 whose security rests on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.