more on Possible Crypto Breakthrough?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: David Wagner <daw () cs berkeley edu>
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2003 14:15:32 -0700 (PDT)
To: dave () farber net
Cc: sdpoe () nautilussolutions com
Subject: [IP] Possible Crypto Breakthrough?

Don't be fooled by the hype.  These discoveries have no impact on crypto.
There is little reason to think they ever will.  The hype bears no
relation to reality.

The discovery that PRIMES is in P (as reported the Economist article)
is many months old.  Although it was a startling and truly exciting
discovery, it has little impact on crypto.  I know the Economist tried to
insinuate that it may have implications for factoring, but the Economist
is hardly an authoritative source on computer science or mathematics.
The Economist's innuendos are without basis in fact, in my opinion.

The discovery of small gaps between primes is a more recent and entirely
separate discovery that apparently has nothing to do with crypto or even
with "PRIMES in P".  The small-gaps result has even less impact on crypto
than the "PRIMES in P" result -- which is to say, none whatsoever, as far
as I can tell.  You won't even find any *reporters* claiming that small
prime gaps have anything to do with crypto, let alone mathematicians.

-- David Wagner (cryptography researcher)


------ End of Forwarded Message

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