Is the Riemann Hypothesis a threat?

Is the Riemann Hypothesis a threat to the encryption community? If so, how?

http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=12296

The answer is kinda, sorta, maybe... but then we've known for a while that EC is the way encryption should go... however the idea of constantly using larger keys is clearly flawed, Riemann or no.

cheers,

catch

I would answer this seriously but you've never replied to any other thread you've started cause you're a lame ass, and dont undestand the subject anyway.

-Maestr0

OK all high and mighty one, maybe the rest of us would like to see your response despite the poster....

Whether the thread starter reply's or not the question is one that should be pondered. IMHO - this goes way beyond Riemann's hypothesis and I think catch hit the nail on the head. There has to be some other scheme than increasing the key size.

And Eyecre8, that's the pot calling the kettle black. If you felt Maestr0's post was useless why follow up with another useless post, bitching about someone bitching is just as annoying.

OK, I will make an attempt.....................

Is the Riemann Hypothesis a threat to the encryption community? If so, how?

The answer is "NO"............strictly speaking, although catch made an extremely useful contribution from the "in the field" viewpoint................so, if you are writing a paper, I would recommend following that up and using his comments in your summing up............as in " the answer to the question is xxxxxxxxx, but the way forwards is yyyyyyyy" ;)

The math is all to do with predicting prime numbers...............there is loads on the net and in books so I will leave that bit to you to sort out how much goes in your paper?

Now, the predictability of prime numbers does have an obvious impact on the security of many current encryption methodologies, which place some reliance on the apparent UNPREDICTABILITY of such numbers.

However it is Riemann's "hypothesis" not his "law" ................if you could make it HAPPEN then it would be a real threat, at the moment I (personally) still class it as a "potential vulnerability", yet to be exploited.

Does "Fermat's last theorem" ring any bells here? :D

Well, Maestr0, is a little grumpy this morning. However, a quick Google of the phrase "Riemann Hypothesis" brings up this right on top:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/RiemannHypothesis.html

A very pithy analysis of the whole concept and where much of the research currently stands. If you have any mathematical prowess, this might be good reading. As for me, ZZZZZZZZZ ...

;)

And the list that follows that Google search is full of various takes on the topic.

I didnt respond with a serious answer because its a rather silly question (perhaps not as silly as how MS is going to destroy the universe) But, since you seem interested, I will give you my opinion. RH is not a method of factoring primes which would be much worse for crytptography, it is actually more just a description of approximate distribution of primes as we approach infinity. It is not exact and rather merely states a pattern which has already been seen for years, which is actually used in encryption to generate the primes used (you have to have someway to generate huge primes without waiting years) . Reimann stated his hypothesis in 1859 and for all zeros computed against his hypothesis since, there have not been any that did NOT appear to correlate his hypothesis. In fact it is generally accepted by mathematiicians to be true,an many algorithms for factoring (and generating) primes, already behave as though it were. So while as a mathematical point of interest its probably as cool if not cooler than a proof for Fermats last theorem, its not going to bring the internet down or cryptography, to me its more akin to proving the sky is blue. Whether or not crytography can continue to rely on our inability to factor primes quickly remains to be seen, but crytptographers know, and have always known, what can be done with math can be undone with math as well, the idea is just to make it take too much time hence the term "computationally secure", not actually secure. Cryptography is always in a race to stay ahead of our abiltity to compute faster and faster. This is the failing that catch refers to, in that no method or algorithm can be secure, if a a complete analysis keyspace can be completed in a short amount of time, and thats why new methods are being developed that do not have this weakness, but be assured, they will bring a new set of weaknesses and problems to the table, and the race will continue.


-Maestr0