Re: RSA Challenge Question

Curious_1 wrote:

This might seem like a silly question but I wanted to know .... what
would happen if someone came up with a polynomial time algorithm for
solving the hardest of RSA Challenge numbers?

Let's even take it to it's logical extreme .... what would happen if
someone came up with a general method for integer factorization that
was as simple (and equally time consuming) as multiplying the factors
to arrive at the product?

Would this person's life be over as they knew it? Would they be
assassinated? Would they be forced to live the rest of their lives in
some sort of Siberia, with no contact with the rest of the world???

It depends. Could they get more money from claiming the RSA prize, or
from somebody who would want to be able to break RSA for their own
good? (Isn't RSA the key to breaking PGP, for example?)

Again, silly question ... but would probably make for a good novel or
movie!

Wasn't this more or less the original draft of what became "Good Will
Hunting" (except that it dealt with a particular code, not a general
formula for decoding RSA)?

-- Don
.

Relevant Pages

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