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Knapsack Cryptographic Schemes

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Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security

Related Concepts

Digital Signatures; Encryption; Lattice: Public Key Systems

Definition

Cryptographic knapsack schemes were viewed as very promising in the late 1970s and early 1980s since their encryption speed was superb to any other public key scheme invented [27]. The future of knapsack tumbled down when the one knapsack scheme after the other was broken.

Introduction

The knapsack problem originates from operational research. Suppose one wants to transport some goods that have a given economical value and a given size (e.g., volume). The transportation medium, e.g., a truck, is however limited in size. The question then is to maximize the total economical value to transport, given the size limitations of the transportation medium.

The above-mentioned knapsack problem is not the one that was proposed for cryptographic purposes. The one used is a only a special case, namely, the one in which the economical value of each good is equal to its size. This special problem is known as the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, UK

    Yvo Desmedt Dr.

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  1. Yvo Desmedt Dr.
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Henk C. A. van Tilborg

  2. Center for Secure Information Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030-4422, USA

    Sushil Jajodia

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Desmedt, Y. (2011). Knapsack Cryptographic Schemes. In: van Tilborg, H.C.A., Jajodia, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5906-5_323

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