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Would someone competent in cryptography please explain this to a “regular” programmer?
by jeofken 6y ago
Would someone competent in cryptography please explain this to a “regular” programmer?
- lquist 6y agoYes and if it is feasible given current computer architectures or requires significant advances in quantum algorithms/computers?
- pkulak 6y agoYeah, if this really is fast prime factoring, we're all in a lot of trouble.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago“No more secrets”
- immigrantsheep 6y agoSetec Astronomy
- LinuxBender 6y agoCocktail party at the reservoir
- trav4225 6y agoI'll be there! P.S. Please don't bring Cooty.
- ballballball 6y agoToo many secrets
- smolder 6y agoIf that's the case it's funny to think... NSA could have sat on this for years. Though that would be a really hard secret to keep.
- xxpor 6y agoI'd always figured they'd have a (useful) quantum computer sitting in the basement of Ft. Meade at some point, and it's existence would be Top Secret with whatever codeword means "if this leaks, or we think it'll leak, we just assassinate you"
- Lammy 6y agoWhy not just put it somewhere far away instead? You could even double up the benefits by picking a cold place to help keep your equipment temps down https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xkeyscore-worldmap.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xkeyscore-worldmap.j...
- xxpor 6y agoBecause that's not as fun to think about when you drive past the Ft. Meade exit and it's scary signs on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway ;)
- hardwaregeek 6y agoI've held the theory that if anybody found something like fast prime factoring or a P = NP proof, they'd get assassinated pretty quickly. It'd be in basically every government's interest to get the knowledge, then make sure nobody else has it.
- muricula 6y agoDunno we have post quantum algorithms which don't rely on factoring prime numbers like RSA does, but it will be a lot of systems administration type work to make sure that nobody is using RSA keys anymore.
- john_alan 6y agoSemi-prime factoring. Also we have elliptic curves.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dfabulich 6y agoRSA is a "public key" cryptography system, where you have a public key that everyone's allowed to know, and a private key that you keep secret. Anyone can use the public key to encrypt messages, but you need the private key to decrypt messages. (You can also use it for digital signatures, where you provide a copy of the message and also "encrypt" the message with the private key; anyone can publicly decrypt it. If the "decrypted" message matches the original, then the signature proves that the message was signed by someone who has the private key.) RSA works by starting with two large random prime numbers P and Q. You multiply P and Q to get a number M, and that number becomes part of the public key. An attacker who knows P and Q can compute your private key and decrypt your messages. RSA assumes that it's computationally infeasible to factor M back into P and Q. It's supposed to be something like O(2^n), where n is the length of M. A fast factorization algorithm breaks that assumption, allowing attackers to decrypt messages and forge digital signatures. If Schorr has found an algorithm that does this, I would say it "destroyes the RSA cryptosystem." (My guess: it probably doesn't work, because drafts of this paper have been out for a few years and the sky hasn't fallen yet.)