This report on the state of the art and future directions of
public-key cryptography is published in accordance with the
terms of reference of the European Institute for System
Security (EISS). The EISS was founded in 1988 by cabinet
resolution of the state government of Baden-W}rttemberg and
its basic task is scientific research and knowledge transfer
in the field of security in telecommunications and computer
and information systems.
This report gives the results of an EISS workshop on
public-keycryptography and contains seven chapters: an
introduction, the scope of the workshop, the topics chosen,
classification and description of the most prominent
public-key systems, the dependence of public-key
cryptography on computational number theory, mistakes and
problems with public-key systems, and a projection of needs
and requirements for public-key systems.
It is addressed to all members of the computer science
community: systems developers, researchers, decision makers,
standardization committees, patent offices, and users and
customers of secure computer systems.