Re: IBM's New Algo

[dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)]

John Young <jya@pipeline.com> writes:

>    The New York Times, May 7, 1997, p. D5.
> 
>    I.B.M. Researchers Develop A New Encryption Formula
...
>    The system is based on a problem that has defied solution
>    by mathematicians for 150 years, I.B.M. said.

I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with a friend who has
a closed-form solution to a well-known problem that's been unsolved for
about that long.  He has no intention of publishing it, but he has already
made quite a bit of $$$ on it. :-)

I've known the guy for a number of years and it's not the first time he gets
a good result and makes money on it instead of yet another paper in a 
refereed journal.  In general, lots more is known to some people than is
published. E.g. it's possible that some of stuff I did for my Ph.D. thesis
was done by the British crypto people but never made it to the open literatre.

>    Mr. Schneier said that the cryptographic formulas now in
>    use were already robust enough. The biggest challenge, he
>    said, is creating security systems in the real world that
>    are not vulnerable to hackers.
> 
>    "Cryptography is a lot more than math" he said.

Let me get this straight - Schneier claims that factoring is secure now and
will remain secure in the future?

---

<a href="mailto:dlv@bwalk.dm.com">Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM</a>
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps