I think it's very important to point out that this cryptosystem was, in fact, first proposed by Ueli Maurer (see Conditionally-Perfect Secrecy and a Provably-Secure Randomized Cipher, Journal of Cryptology, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 53-66, 1992).
Michael Rabin only came up with a (very obscure) proof that the system was secure under more general types of attacks.
Please also note that this cryptosystem, although it's very nice, has no practical use. Quantum cryptography propose a much more efficient solution for unconditionally secure cryptography (and quantum cryptography is no practical either).
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's very important to point out that this cryptosystem was, in fact, first proposed by Ueli Maurer (see Conditionally-Perfect Secrecy and a Provably-Secure Randomized Cipher, Journal of Cryptology, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 53-66, 1992).
Michael Rabin only came up with a (very obscure) proof that the system was secure under more general types of attacks.
Please also note that this cryptosystem, although it's very nice, has no practical use. Quantum cryptography propose a much more efficient solution for unconditionally secure cryptography (and quantum cryptography is no practical either).
Julien