> The P=NP problem is FAR more fundamental, Yes. > and if proven true, would basically be a proof that e.g. public key crypto can be broken (NOT a description

> The P=NP problem is FAR more fundamental, Yes. > and if proven true, would basically be a proof that e.g. public key crypto can be broken (NOT a description of how to though). Well, only if the answer is that P=NP. > I believe P vs NP is a different beast entirely. We don’t even know which way the answer should go. Most people expect P < NP, and then crypto wouldn't be broken. P=NP would also break pseudo-random number generators, for pretty much the same reason as the rest of crypto. However Don Knuth is one example of an expert who thinks P = NP is plausible. Btw, we do know quite a lot about how a proof of P vs NP will _not_ look like. That is we are in the curious situation where we can prove that certain proof techniques won't work on this problem. Weirdly enough, we already have the optimal algorithm, we just can't prove its runtime. Ie we have an algorithm that runs in polynomial time on all NP hard problems, if P=NP. (But the constant factors are crazy.)