Re: A89: Linux Port for 89/92


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Re: A89: Linux Port for 89/92




On Thu, Jul 15, 1999 at 17:14:30 -0500, Miles Raymond wrote:
> 
> Well, if you know n, then finding p and q is easy, as they are the only
> factors of n.  I know this because it is stated on the RSA site that both p
> and q are prime numbers, and a prime multiplied with another prime will give
> you a number that has only those two primes as factors.

No, it's not easy at all. In fact this is the strength of RSA. It's *very*
hard to factor large numbers, especially if they have only a few, large
factors.

> It wouldn't be a major waste of time if I found more than 3 factors (meaning
> that there was a typo) or if one of the factors was less than 2^128 as you
> say.

Ok, go ahead and try it. But don't come to me after 20 years or so saying
"damn! it was wrong! it had three factors!"...

> Factoring this way might be slow, yes, but I do not have the math knowledge
> to use such algorithms that the RSA site suggests.  I do not know a single
> person who has spoken about doing anything near eliptic curves and such that
> are required for those high-level algorithms.

Neither do I.

> Math comes very easy to me, but I do not consider myself a 'math wiz'
> either...

Same as me then... :)  I guess many programmers find math easy since a
similar kind of logic analyzing is involved in programming (right?).

//Johan


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