cryptography 9

Dan cracked the final challenge of the Google Da Vinci Code Quest in 5 minutes. The top 10,000 get a cryptex to solve. (Photos)

The Code Book by Simon Singh is the last book I read. It’s also the only non-fiction I managed to finish in two years.

An update on the IIT-K prime factorisation algorithm. via Matthai Markose

distributed.net cracked RC5-64. RC5-64 is an encryption algorithm developed by RSA. It took 4 years. It looks long. But the big deal is, the algorithm therefore can’t be used for long-term security. More importantly, it’s becoming practical to use distributed computing on a massive scale.

Prof. Manindra Agarwal and his students at IIT-K have figured out a polynomial time test for primality. It was an unsolved problem. The RSA algorithm assumes that this is impossible. (NYTimes) Of course, others have claimed the same. To my knowledge, none is conclusively proven. What if they’re true? Well, in a few years, our cryptography algorithms will be useless. So it’s back to the drawing board, with security-related dot-coms from Univs popping up.

A truly inspired way of describing DeCSS: DeCSS haikus. (I hope linking to it is not illegal.)

.- - .-.. .- … - a morse code translator.

A good report on the knee-jerk reactions to the WTC attack.

Edgar Allen Poe’s 150 year old puzzle has been solved.