First Principles Ep. 6 with Ron Rivest Long before the internet became a place to bank, transact, or build blockchains, Turing Award winner Ron Rivest helped solve a foundational problem: how can strangers communicate securely without first meeting to exchange a secret? Rivest tells the story of inventing RSA... with Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, why digital signatures fascinated him even more than encryption, and how cryptographic hashes, government pressure, patents, and standards shaped the security infrastructure we rely on today. Rivest shares his unusually candid views on quantum computing, post-quantum security, and more. Hosted by Tim Roughgarden with Dan Boneh. 00:00 Intro: the two problems that could break modern cryptography 01:10 Why Ron Rivest’s work underpins the internet and blockchains 08:10 Before public-key cryptography, there was no theory of security 11:05 The open problem that led to RSA 13:55 The night Ron Rivest discovered the core idea behind RSA 17:55 Why digital signatures were the real breakthrough 19:14 The RSA challenge — and a prediction that was off by quadrillions of years 28:33 How government pressure shaped cryptographic standards 30:36 Designing the hash functions that made digital signatures practical 33:26 The Fiat–Shamir transformation, explained 38:04 Building a cryptography company before the web existed 42:31 Will quantum computers ever become powerful enough to break RSA? 48:02 The cryptography securing the internet, elections, and everyday life 50:11 What surprised Dan: Quantum giveth and quantum taketh awayshow more

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