On 26 Feb 2002, at 19:46, Henk Stokhorst wrote: > http://slashdot.org > > factoring breakthrough? > Doesn't look like a breakthrough, although there may be a very significant reduction in the amount of work required to factor "awkward" numbers.
The implications in terms of public key cryptography look as though they could be significant - those "secure" 128-bit cyphers in widespread use for e-commerce are starting to look pretty transparent, but doubling the number of bits in the key is more than sufficient to "defeat" this latest advance. Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
