I'll leave aside the half-truths and misleading garbage but point out
a falsehood on which his "case" depends:
>1977: RSA proposed: only
> exponential time
> factoring techniques
> known
Supposedly followed by the discovery of sub-exponential algorithms all
thanks to RSA who caused people to be interested in factoring.
Actually sub-exponential techiques were known and used before that.
For instance Brillhart and Selfridge published a paper about the
continued fraction algorithm in 1975.
Simpler variations on that theme go back to Lehmer / Krai"tchik /
Legendre / Gauss / Euler / Fermat. The quadratic sieve and NFS were a
continuation of a centuries-old progression. IMHO, RSA caused the
media frenzy but had no influence whatsoever on the number theory.
-- Rob