The use of RSA is undergoing a period of rapid expansion and may become
ubiquitous within a few years. It is currently used in a wide variety
of products, platforms and industries around the world. It is found in
many commercial software products and planned for many more. RSA is
built into current or planned operating systems by Microsoft, Apple,
Sun, and Novell. In hardware, RSA can be found in secure telephones, on
Ethernet network cards, and on smart cards. RSA is also used internally
in many institutions, including branches of the U.S. government, major
corporations, national laboratories, and universities.
Adoption of RSA seems to be proceeding more quickly for authentication (digital signatures) than for privacy (encryption), perhaps in part because products for authentication are easier to export than those for privacy (see Question 3.1.6).