4 ms·
Some things are worth knowing just out of curiosity. I always found the RSA algorithm fascinating in its own right, despite the fact I have no intention of ever
by Mercury23 14y ago
Some things are worth knowing just out of curiosity. I always found the RSA algorithm fascinating in its own right, despite the fact I have no intention of ever implementing it myself. I'm not a mathematician nor a computer scientist, but I find an appreciation of certain algorithms not unlike the appreciation of art. Pointless in a pragmatic sense, but intellectually satisfying.
I can't speak for this article specifically though; I think there are better explanations out there, not to say that this one is bad. It is a difficult topic to explain after all, especially when you don't know the level of math background your audience has.
- dvanduzer 14y agoFor one thing, it's just plain wrong about Diffie-Hellman's susceptibility to a man-in-the-middle attack. The author claims there is a potential if an attacker obtains the intermediate values, but then later explains the problem as if the attacker had intercepted the private values (which are never exchanged). There is the potential for man-in-the-middle if the attacker intercepts and modifies the intermediate values during the exchange, but that is not mentioned here. It is, of course, vital to keep those privately generated values secret, and if an attacker learns those, then the communication isn't secure. Various communication protocols are vulnerable to brute force, or eavesdropping, or man-in-the-middle. Confusing these things and passing it off as an authoritative explanation is bad for everyone.