Derek A Atkins is a computer scientist specializing in Computer Security. He studied Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, and currently works at PGP Corporation

PGP Corporation

PGP Corporation, co-founded by Jon Callas and Phil Dunkelberger, is based in Menlo Park, California. PGP Corporation was funded by Rob Theis, General Partner, Doll Capital Management and Terry Garnett, General Partner, Venrock Associates. The company is the current owner of the Pretty Good Privacy...

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Atkins is an author or co-author of several computer security books, including Internet Security Professional Reference and Reputational Risk: A Question of Trust. In April 1994, he co-authored the paper The Magic Words are Squeamish Ossifrage

The Magic Words are Squeamish Ossifrage

The text "The Magic Words are Squeamish Ossifrage" was the solution to a challenge ciphertext posed by the inventors of the RSA cipher in 1977. The problem appeared in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. It was solved in 1993–1994 by a large joint computer...

detailing the factorization of RSA-129.