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If the NSA had really broken asymmetric crypto it would imply that they were sitting on an huge unpublished result in one or more of a) complexity theory b) qua
by hyperbovine 13y ago
If the NSA had really broken asymmetric crypto it would imply that they were sitting on an huge unpublished result in one or more of a) complexity theory b) quantum computing c) number theory d) ?? something even more outlandish. It's difficult to imagine even them keeping a lid on that. Mathematics is not a large field nor is it by nature a secretive one. (Arguably recognition is the thing driving most mathematicians.) The furtive whispers would accumulate.
- eru 13y agoOh, in RSA there are also lots of `weak' numbers that you shouldn't choose. They might have found some attacks against some newly recognized weak numbers.
- wimbo 13y agoI don't really think this is an outlandish claim, especially as it already happened with public key cryptography: http://www.zdnet.com/gchq-pioneers-on-birth-of-public-key-crypto-3040090638/ http://www.zdnet.com/gchq-pioneers-on-birth-of-public-key-cr...
- NegativeK 13y agoRSA has plenty of mathematical gotchas that, if you don't know about them, will lead to a weaker implementation. If the NSA hasn't demolished public key crypto, it still seems reasonable to assume that they've made sure a significant implementation vulnerability (that looks like normal crypto give and take) has been inserted.