7 ms·

It doesn't destroy it...at best it weakens the lower RSA bit keys. If it destroys it...why not prove it with a PoC on one of the RSA numbers that hasn't been f

It doesn't destroy it...at best it weakens the lower RSA bit keys. If it destroys it...why not prove it with a PoC on one of the RSA numbers that hasn't been factored yet. RSA-260 is still open...

EthanHeilman 6y ago
On one hand I am skeptical about strong claims especially in the early stage of the claim. On the other hand Schnorr is the person claiming it and no one has refuted it yet. I wonder how long until we will know for certain.
- j_walter 6y ago
  The paper seems to be built off of the work of a lot of previous research. It will take some time to prove it, but again if Schnorr is so adamant that this is true he should have no problem with a PoC...even a simple one.
  - EthanHeilman 6y ago
    Not sure I would agree that it would be "no problem" to do a PoC. Going from paper to PoC might take a long time. If you are very sure of a result, better to get it out early and let others look at it.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Refuting it puts a massive burden on other people since finding the fault in complicated proofs can be very involved. Providing a PoC puts a burden on the person making the claim. So at a minimum not providing a PoC is a very selfish approach.
- pfortuny 6y ago
  Hironaka has claimed to have a proof of reduction of singularities in positive characteristic for years (he got the Fields Medal for the same result in characteristic 0). Nobody has read the manuscript though...
tantalor 6y ago
Pffh, that's for lowly applied mathematicians. This is theory! /s
TacticalCoder 6y ago
Ron Rivest explains himself that once in a while he gets an email from someone saying basically "I broke RSA": not everyday but it's a semi-regular occurrence. And he always nicely answers by asking the person claiming to have broken it to solve a challenge (and it's not even a crazy high number of RSA bit keys he gives). Theory is nice but if you can find the solution to something, just do it and then brag once it's done : )
- hinkley 6y ago
  Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and comp.compression on Usenet was a place to be, usually we went beyond the pigeonhole principle by asking people to grab a megabyte from random.org, compress it, and then get back to us. Nobody ever did.
  - capitol_ 6y ago
    I remember one of those exchanges, two people waged money about compressing random data so that the data + decompress program would be smaller than the original data. The other guy came back with a program that moved some of the random data into the metadata of the filesystem, in such a way so that the produced files did indeed become small enough. Don't know if the other guy ever paid out.
    - philsnow 6y ago
      When I was a kid I found some compression program on a BBS, that claimed to use "wavelets" to compress even more than was previously thought possible. It turned out it was using a similar trick (but this was in MSDOS, so it was just hiding blocks in unused parts of the disk and storing their addresses in the "compressed" file). I blithely used the tool on some things I had on hand that were taking up too much space, and predictably lost ~all of them. I learned a little bit about information theory that day, and my sneakernet bandwidth was saturated for a while afterwards.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      I think I remember that one too, or definitely one like it. That's a cheap trick. You gotta send someone the file, otherwise there's not much of a point.
raverbashing 6y ago
Agreed. Typical mathematician mentality People would be more convinced by presenting a factorization of a challenge RSA number
- klyrs 6y ago
  As a computational mathematician, I must object. The world is large enough for multiple deep specializations. I can't think at this level of abstraction (hence, I quit number theory after bashing at it for a few years). I can, however, read a math paper and put together an implementation as long as I'm familiar with the notation and the axiom of choice hasn't been used in a nontrivial matter. But then, my implementation would probably piss off software engineers who like to castigate research software that doesn't meet their standards (rather than, say, helping out). Expecting everybody to have mastery of every specialization that their work touches is toxic and unproductive. I look forward to a team of motivated undergrad number theorists to tear into this and hack up an implementation.
  - richardfey 6y ago
    Count me in!
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
klmadfejno 6y ago
From the look of it, he hasn't really claimed this yet in public. This link is someone on twitter saying he did in private. I would just wait
- EthanHeilman 6y ago
  He claimed it in the paper he posted on eprint. "This destroys the RSA cryptosystem" - Claus Peter Schnorr[0] [0]: https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/232.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/232.pdf
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    But is this a final released copy?
- pfortuny 6y ago
  It is in the ePrints abstract, which is essentially public.

It doesn't destroy it...at best it weakens the lower RSA bit keys. If it destroys it...why not prove it with a PoC on one of the RSA numbers that hasn't been factored yet. RSA-260 is still open...

EthanHeilman 6y ago

On one hand I am skeptical about strong claims especially in the early stage of the claim. On the other hand Schnorr is the person claiming it and no one has refuted it yet. I wonder how long until we will know for certain.

j_walter 6y ago
The paper seems to be built off of the work of a lot of previous research. It will take some time to prove it, but again if Schnorr is so adamant that this is true he should have no problem with a PoC...even a simple one.
- EthanHeilman 6y ago
  Not sure I would agree that it would be "no problem" to do a PoC. Going from paper to PoC might take a long time. If you are very sure of a result, better to get it out early and let others look at it.
marcinzm 6y ago
Refuting it puts a massive burden on other people since finding the fault in complicated proofs can be very involved. Providing a PoC puts a burden on the person making the claim. So at a minimum not providing a PoC is a very selfish approach.
pfortuny 6y ago
Hironaka has claimed to have a proof of reduction of singularities in positive characteristic for years (he got the Fields Medal for the same result in characteristic 0). Nobody has read the manuscript though...

tantalor 6y ago

Pffh, that's for lowly applied mathematicians. This is theory! /s

TacticalCoder 6y ago

Ron Rivest explains himself that once in a while he gets an email from someone saying basically "I broke RSA": not everyday but it's a semi-regular occurrence. And he always nicely answers by asking the person claiming to have broken it to solve a challenge (and it's not even a crazy high number of RSA bit keys he gives). Theory is nice but if you can find the solution to something, just do it and then brag once it's done : )

hinkley 6y ago
Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and comp.compression on Usenet was a place to be, usually we went beyond the pigeonhole principle by asking people to grab a megabyte from random.org, compress it, and then get back to us. Nobody ever did.
- capitol_ 6y ago
  I remember one of those exchanges, two people waged money about compressing random data so that the data + decompress program would be smaller than the original data. The other guy came back with a program that moved some of the random data into the metadata of the filesystem, in such a way so that the produced files did indeed become small enough. Don't know if the other guy ever paid out.
  - philsnow 6y ago
    When I was a kid I found some compression program on a BBS, that claimed to use "wavelets" to compress even more than was previously thought possible. It turned out it was using a similar trick (but this was in MSDOS, so it was just hiding blocks in unused parts of the disk and storing their addresses in the "compressed" file). I blithely used the tool on some things I had on hand that were taking up too much space, and predictably lost ~all of them. I learned a little bit about information theory that day, and my sneakernet bandwidth was saturated for a while afterwards.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    I think I remember that one too, or definitely one like it. That's a cheap trick. You gotta send someone the file, otherwise there's not much of a point.

raverbashing 6y ago

Agreed. Typical mathematician mentality People would be more convinced by presenting a factorization of a challenge RSA number

klyrs 6y ago
As a computational mathematician, I must object. The world is large enough for multiple deep specializations. I can't think at this level of abstraction (hence, I quit number theory after bashing at it for a few years). I can, however, read a math paper and put together an implementation as long as I'm familiar with the notation and the axiom of choice hasn't been used in a nontrivial matter. But then, my implementation would probably piss off software engineers who like to castigate research software that doesn't meet their standards (rather than, say, helping out). Expecting everybody to have mastery of every specialization that their work touches is toxic and unproductive. I look forward to a team of motivated undergrad number theorists to tear into this and hack up an implementation.
- richardfey 6y ago
  Count me in!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

klmadfejno 6y ago

From the look of it, he hasn't really claimed this yet in public. This link is someone on twitter saying he did in private. I would just wait

EthanHeilman 6y ago
He claimed it in the paper he posted on eprint. "This destroys the RSA cryptosystem" - Claus Peter Schnorr[0] [0]: https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/232.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/232.pdf
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  But is this a final released copy?
pfortuny 6y ago
It is in the ePrints abstract, which is essentially public.