[Gllug] RSA or DSA

[John Winters]

On Mon, 2005-05-16 at 17:42 +0100, Tethys wrote:
> Nix writes:
> 
> >>            RSA is based on the principle (not proven) that factoring
> >> large primes (as a way to crack the key) is difficult.
> >
> >Er, that should be large prime *products*.
> 
> Yep, an error famously made by Bill Gates in his book, "The road ahead",
> where he claims:
> 
> 	The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an
> 	easy way to factor large prime numbers.
> 
> Errr. OK... for any given prime, p:
> 
> 	p = 1 * p

Factoring the product of two primes is also easy.  Just try dividing by
2, then 3, then 5, then 7, then 11...

It just isn't very quick.

John

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