On 8/21/2018 9:03 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 09:43:48PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:

On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 8:11 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>
wrote:

     From: Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>


         Quantum computers will certainly impact cryptography where there's
         heavy reliance on factoring primes and discrete logarithms.


     I am really interested in the problem of factoring primes. Will a quantum
     computer help?



Yes, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm

New cryptographic algorithms are being developed which will presumably be
immune to quantum computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Post-quantum_cryptography

All current asymmetric cryptography in wide use today (for verifying websites
you go to are trusted, that software packages are correct, in securing
confidential information between you and your bank and e-mail provider, e.g. in
digital signature, public key encryption, and key agreement protocols) are
vulnerable. This includes not only RSA whose security rests on factoring
primes, but also the discrete logarithm problem which is the foundation of
Diffie-Hellman key exchange and elliptic curve cryptography.

Jason
Actually, you are missing Bruce's understated ridicule... It's a very
Aussie sense of humour, so I don't blame you. Nobody should be
interested in factoring prime numbers, because prime numbers cannot be
factored - by definition. Of course, what you mean is factoring
numbers that are the product of two large prime numbers, which is an
important cryptographical problem. I'm sure Bruce knows that too, but
couldn't resist poking a bit of fun into the conversation.

Cheers

So where's your Aussie sense of humor, Russell?  I wanted to see how long before Jason caught on.

Brent

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