Rejection

Rejection letters for famous papers in Computer Science:

R.L. RIVEST, A. SHAMIR, AND L. ADELMAN
“A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems.”

According to the (very short) introduction, this paper purports to present a practical implementation of Diffie and Hellman’s public-key cryptosystem for applications in the electronic mail realm. If this is indeed the premise, the paper should be rejected both for a failure to live up to it and for its irrelevance.

I doubt that a system such as this one will ever be practical. The paper does a poor job of convincing the reader that practicality is attainable. For one thing, there is the issue of the number n used to factor the message.

[…]

Electronic mail on the Arpanet is indeed a nice gizmo, but it is unlikely it will ever be diffused outside academic circles and public laboratories—environments in which the need to maintain confidentiality is scarcely pressing. Laboratories with military contracts will never communicate through the Arpanet! Either normal people or small companies will be able to afford a VAX each, or the market for electronic mail will remain tiny. Granted, we are seeing the appearance of so-called microcomputers, such as the recently announced Apple II, but their limitations are so great that neither they nor their descendants will have the power necessary to communicate through a network.

[Via Qwghlm]