RSA Security

Everyone here, of course, knows that breaking the RSA encryption scheme
can be no harder than factoring huge numbers. The present security in
RSA rests in the fact that nobody has found an efficient way to do it.
At the same time, however, nobody has been able to show that it can't
be done. We are simply going on faith and past history.

The problem is that if someone were to discover a efficient method for
factoring, I don't believe that we would know about it for a long time.
For example, if by some stroke of genius, I were to discover an efficient
way to factor, you would never hear about it from me! Being the greedy
person that I am, I would say to myself: "How can I make a buck from
this?". I would probably go to the government or some company (quietly)
and say to them: "For X dollars each, I will break RSA keys for you."
The beauty is that I would not need to disclose the algorithm for
factoring. They could easily check if the results that I gave them
were correct!

You write:

>I would probably go to the government or some company (quietly)
>and say to them: "For X dollars each, I will break RSA keys for you."

You are very naive.  Your secret would be very valuable, and there
would be great incentive for an unscrupulous customer to get the
secret from you.

Put yourself in the position of DIRNSA.  He is most likely an honorable
person who wouldn't think of torturing the information out of you (and
I'm not just saying that because the NSA is most likely reading this
list -- most people in government are honorable).  However, he has a
problem:

1) Secrets leak - and sooner or later, someone who would stoop to nasty
methods will find out about you.

2) He is responsible for protecting the country against certain threats.
You are, in a sense, a threat -- because you might unintentionally do
something really stupid with your knowledge.

He must now balance your rights in our society vs. his responsibility
to protect it.  It is a difficult situation.  I think the best you
could hope for is to sell the secret to them and be made a job offer
you can't refuse.

If you figure out a cheap way to factor, I would advise you to publish
it as widely as possible, most likely via multiple postings to multiple
newsgroups on the net.  As people are going to be very interested in
your identity, I suggest you do it anonymously.  VERY anonymously.

Spookily yours,
Robert "reads too many spy novels" Woodhead