On Thu, 15 Oct 1998, Paul Victor Novarese wrote:
> I don't think they would invest the time either, seeing as there is no
> practical (or forseeable) use for Meresenne primes. If it is true, I
> don't see any reason they wouldn't share this discovery with the public,
> as it would probably increase their PR a good bit.
They could use the task, among other things, to test / "burn in" new
supercomputers. Done on some of the fastest machines, which no doubt they
are constantly developing, improving and testing this could quickly rack
up some results. The larger exponent could be a result of random tries
that happened to find it, too, making the odds little better.
"No Such Agency" could theoretically have leaked it out if they considered
the data of no use or value beyond testing their systems (But then, that
would be a bit odd, since then they'd better stick with known exponents
and the results would be suspect if not). And, due to the hard-stuck
customs and practices in such an agency, I consider holding a big PR thing
about something like that pretty unimaginable - remember this is an agency
that until recently didn't even "officially" exist, and this is data that
most of the world couldn't care less about.
Besides, the mere knowledge of their computing capability etc. could be
considered a leak. Which is why I doubt such information would've been
given out anyway, and this is likely to be another alien-story. But, as
said, we'll see... at least half of the story. Ofcourse, now it'd be funny
if NSA intentionally planted a "two part" leak using something they know
people can confirm and is true (5,200,000 exponent) as a bait to get
people believe the second part ;)
-Donwulff
