Theoretical cryptographers -- those who come up with new encryption schemes like the classics we rely on, e.g RSA and DH -- will take the following perspective:

Theoretical cryptographers -- those who come up with new encryption schemes like the classics we rely on, e.g RSA and DH -- will take the following perspective: Every encryption scheme is based on the assumption "X is not solvable in polynomial time", for some problem X. Don't start by wasting time with details of the scheme. Start by telling me X. Common examples of X are factoring and discrete log. More exotic ones include e.g. [1], the types of assumptions underlying fully homomorphic encryption. In the case of this bio paper, cryptographers won't care unless the authors can succinctly describe: 1. The computational problem that needs to be solved to break their scheme. 2. The relationship of this computational problem to well-known ones (can it be reduced to factoring? To computing some difficult integral?). 3. Evidence to suggest this problem is difficult (can factoring be reduced to it? Or some other hard problem?). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice-based_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice-based_cryptography