[Cryptography] State of sin (was Re: What to put in a new cryptography course)

Ron Garret ron at flownet.com
Mon Jul 11 14:23:58 EDT 2016


On Jul 11, 2016, at 11:11 AM, Arnold Reinhold <agr at me.com> wrote:

> 
>> ...
>> The *generic* discrete log problem (over the integers mod some N, or over an elliptic group) is considered hard because no one, after years of work, has found any attacks on it.
>> 
>> There's no *general* result that says these problems are hard.  What we have instead is some specific, very powerful attacks against particular instances of the problem. We eliminate those particular instances from consideration and say "the rest look good".
>> 
>> *As a matter of theory and mathematics*, we're living in sin:  We assume the problems we pick are hard because our best minds have brought our best methods to bear on them and have not only made no progress, they've managed to prove that *using these techniques* no progress is possible.
>> ...
> 
> The lack of mathematical proofs for the security of cryptographic primitives is a reality with which the cryptographic community is perhaps too comfortable.

Unless someone manages to prove that P != NP we have no other choice but to make our peace with this.

rg



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