A secure protocol for public key exchange

A new protocol provides a network with secure, authenticated key exchanges which thwart all known attacks. The time taken to exchange keys and the memory overhead are reduced partly due to the handshaking being two-way rather than three-way. Interaction with the key certification centre is limited to a minimum, a user only having to consult this public directory once. Problems of `reblocking´ and multiple encryption are eliminated. This protocol takes the advantages from both the RSA (Rivest Shamir and Adleman) public key cryptosystem and the Diffie Hellman public key distribution system, and combines these methods to create a hybrid public key exchange method, which can be used either in point-to-point or network communication