Re: Speculative, but at least interesting

From: Uncle Al (UncleAl0_at_hate.spam.net)
Date: 09/07/04 

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 08:01:46 -0700

Sam Wormley wrote:
>
> Long Standing Math Puzzle May be Solves
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1298728,00.html

"if somebody really has cracked the so-called Riemann hypothesis,
financial disaster might follow. Suddenly all cryptic codes could be
breakable. No internet transaction would be safe."

Assume the Riemann hypothesis is true, then crack every code. A valid
proof would alter nothing here. NSA can brute force crack any
Officially sanctioned encryption right now. Being able in theory to
factor the product of large primes isn't the same as actually doing
it.

Eudora passwords are trivially cracked - your ISP account is naked.
PKZIP encryptions are demonstrated crackable if you know some
contained text.
MS Word and Word Perfect encryptions are easily crackable.
The DES is an NSA joke.
Recent versions of PGP are rumored to include an NSA back door.

What would change? 

-- 
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf