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Jun 16, 2020 at 9:49 history edited CommunityBot
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Sep 16, 2014 at 17:18 history edited CodesInChaos CC BY-SA 3.0
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May 13, 2013 at 21:26 comment added Guy Sirton @DavidCary: I think what I wanted to say a year ago :-) is: "the statement that factoring is NP hard" is incorrect. Since then the answer has been edited and that statement removed... I don't know of a proof showing that factoring isn't NP hard.
May 13, 2013 at 15:34 comment added David Cary @GuySirton: While many people would be surprised if it turns out that factoring is NP-hard, is there any proof that factoring is definitely not NP-hard?
Apr 13, 2012 at 15:02 history edited dr jimbob CC BY-SA 3.0
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Apr 13, 2012 at 14:27 comment added dr jimbob Should not have claimed factoring was NP hard (esp the hard part). Should have said best known (non-quantum computing) algorithms are exponential (really sub-exponential); that is not polynomial time. There isn't a proof showing the P-reducibility to other NP problems like SAT=TSP; partially due to factor not being a decision problem (yes/no answer). The decision problem: does a number N have a factor in the range [2, k] is known to be NP, 2. But P≟NP is unknown.
Apr 13, 2012 at 2:02 comment added Guy Sirton factoring is not NP hard. It's just there is no known algorithm that can factor in polynomial time but AFAIK no one has proven it can't be done. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization
Apr 12, 2012 at 23:38 comment added ewanm89 yeah, just pointing out that bit is also slow.
Apr 12, 2012 at 15:24 history edited dr jimbob CC BY-SA 3.0
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Apr 12, 2012 at 15:23 comment added dr jimbob @ewanm89 - Yes, we only use likely primes -- but with astronomical odds they actually are prime. With random entropy input the chance of getting a false positive prime in openssl with default settings is 1 in ~2^80 ~ 10^24 So until you check about ~10^23 numbers for primality with overwhelming odds you can assume your numbers are truly prime. E.g., if you check a billion potential primes a second, it will take ~10 million years before you are likely to have a false positive prime in your keypair. Edited for RC4/AES mixup.
Apr 12, 2012 at 12:55 comment added ewanm89 @drjimbob not to mention key generation, we only use likely primes not guaranteed primes cause of that one :/
Apr 12, 2012 at 12:54 comment added ewanm89 RC4, not AES in this particular case, but past the particular symmetric algorithm used..
Apr 11, 2012 at 14:30 comment added dr jimbob @Ashwin - As D.W. said, asymmetric cryptography is roughly 10000 times slower/more CPU intensive than using a block cipher. So it makes sense to only transfer enough info to then use the much faster key.
Apr 11, 2012 at 9:34 comment added Ashwin @D.W. : okay dude.. just chill:)
Apr 11, 2012 at 9:30 comment added D.W. @Ashwin, yes, I know that's why you did it, but that's not the point. I am explaining that posting the same question multiple times is not appropriate on this site. Please don't.
Apr 11, 2012 at 8:27 comment added Ashwin @D.W. : I posted the same question multiple times in hope that atleast someone will answer.
Apr 11, 2012 at 4:45 comment added D.W. P.S. @Ashwin, Please don't post the same comment multiple times under different answers.
Apr 11, 2012 at 4:26 comment added Ashwin But, why is there a need to use a symetric key. When the data itself can be ncrypted suing the server's public key. In case of user authentication, only the username and password are are needed which is not very long and can be emcrypted directly using a 2048 bit rsa key(with 2048 bit key you can directly encrypt data upto 256 bytes.)
Apr 11, 2012 at 4:08 comment added Ashwin So the 128 nit encryption is the key for aes encryption but for key exchange 2048 bit rsa key is used right?
Apr 10, 2012 at 16:08 history answered dr jimbob CC BY-SA 3.0