On Breaking the Iterated Merkle-Hellman Public-Key Cryptosystem

In 1976 Diffie and Hellman introduced the concept of a public-key cryptosystem [1]. In 1977 Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman discovered the first incarnation of such a system [4], and soon afterwards Merkle and Hellman produced a second one [3]. Despite the widespread interest in the area, the years have produced no other public-key cryptosystems which have attracted widespread interest.