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If a mathematical breakthrough in factoring is discovered, rending RSA ineffective, would that end secure communications, or are there other methods that would
by jonahx 13y ago
If a mathematical breakthrough in factoring is discovered, rending RSA ineffective, would that end secure communications, or are there other methods that would remain untouched?
- zalzane 13y agoSymmetric encryption algorithms such as AES would not be compromised by any advances in factoring or quantum computation. I don't know of any asymmetric algorithms that are immune - but my knowledge of that domain is limited.
- gizmo686 13y agoThere are other methods. Firstly, factoring is mostly only useful for asymmetric algorithms, which are typically used only for key exchange. So, if you can negotiate your key through a secure side channel, then you do not need to worry about RSA. Additionally, in some respects, you might say that we have already had the breakthrough in factoring because of quantum computers. At this point it is simply a matter of engeneering a large enough quantum computer to be able to attack crypto-systems. Because of this most research into replacements is done under the name of post-quantum cryptography; and there appear to be several workable methods in that area.
- jonahx 13y agoThanks for this answer. Do you know the names of the names of the workable post-quantum methods?
- gizmo686 13y agoI haven't worked with any post-quantum stuff, but a quick search on Google Scholar brough up [0], which has a nice table of contents, and the explanations are understandable with only a background of general math (but they are mathy explanations). You might also want to checkout the wikipedia entries, which have more englishy explanations [1] [0]https://www-old.cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/lehre/WS09_10/vorlesung/pqc_files/PQC.pdf https://www-old.cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/lehre/WS09_10... [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography