[Cryptography] Intel experimental tool....

[Tom Mitchell]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 9:26 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:
> | From: Tom Mitchell <mitch at niftyegg.com>
>
> | Tools like this are interesting.



>
> I'm not sure what you are seeing in that blurb that I'm not.
.......
> It's all about code, lifted by one kind of abstraction.  Details are a
> bit fuzzy (since it is a short puff piece).
.....
> Machines (and humans) can do algebra better than program optimization
.....
> I don't see a new threat here.  At least not to systems with a sound
> theoretical basis (i.e. algebraic).
>

What I am seeing is a tool that has some unknown potential
of reducing a symbolic abstraction (program) to something much
smaller and possibly quicker.

Constant expressions are moved outside of loops by
compilers.   Some compilers make algebraic reductions
today.   Logical expressions are also reduced and rewritten.
Some constant expressions are evaluated by the compiler
and the answer or a simplification inserted.

A special purpose crypto tool might be recompiled for speed with the private
or public key as a constant visible to the compiler.  It might be possible
to quicker test a key via compilation in contrast to computation.
Compilation can be hardware FPGA+VHDL as well as software -- C, Fortran, .....
or combination.

And if not today perhaps some day in the future.






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