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Re: NSA advanced knowledge

received from John Young <[email protected]>:
>
>Responding to msg by [email protected] (Rich Salz) on Wed, 24 Jan  
>7:34 PM
 
>>Is there any indication that the NSA knew about 
>>public-key before  it entered the open literature?
>
>
>   Fred B. Wrixon writes in "Codes and Ciphers," under the
>   "Public Key" entry:
>
>      ... This Hellman-Diffie proposal was apparently
>      anticipated by a similar version developed by the
>      National Security Agency (NSA) a decade earlier.
>      (p. 164)
>
>   No citation or elaboration is given for this claim.
>
>   Wrixon's book is a simply written compendium:
>
>      Codes and Ciphers: An A to Z of Covert Communication,
>      from the Clay Tablet to the Microdot.
>      Fred B. Wrixon
>      Prentice Hall, 1992. Paper $18.00
>      ISBN 0-13-277047-4
 
It was originally called FIREFLY or somesuch thing.  I may have some of
the early papers.  (The same ones leading to the statement in the book).
 
This should predate the STU-II to STU-III transition.