Puzzleology

Mental Poker

Fun paper.

According to this Wikipedia entry, the RSA protocol was the first, and it certainly seems better. Compared to the algorithm outlined in Wikipedia, this protocol is faster (since only one player needs to encrypt the entire deck). Plus, only one private key per player is needed (as opposed to 6 per player). So where does the wikipedia protocol come from, and why is it the representative protocol? (And is the RSA protocol still too slow for “real-time online play”?) At any rate, I guess once you introduce a computer or a server to host online play, you introduce a third party, and the entire point of this protocol is lost.