Number Theory

Peter Murphy writes:
>...
>
>and see the major number theorist in this department, Dr. Keith Matthews.
>He is a really nice guy, and is always interested in writing and/or
>distributing programs for number theory calculations. He even showed me
>one of his newest programs, and demostrated it by factoring 2^71 -1 for

Is this really that impressive? MapleV and my 386dx-20 just factored it 
into 212885833 * 48544121 * 228479 in a matter of 23 cpu seconds.


>he teaches, and could I post it to the list. Voila! Not only did he have
>it printed out on paper, but he also mailed me the relevant LATEX files.

way cool. thanks for the legwork..


>{Textbooks: Number Theory}
>...

>N. Koblitz, "A course in number theory and cryptography", QA3.G7NO.114,

Speaking of who .. he's at my university. :) Nice guy; one of the people 
who offered to help me with the remailer situation last year. 

Funny thing; last year the computer administrators wouldn't even allow a 
copy of PGP to reside on their systems -- now it is part of their public 
account (student-run officially University unsupported software, usable 
by all). 


>H. Shapiro, "Introduction to number theory",  QA 241.S445 1983,

this isn't the Hawk Shapiro..?  

>D.E.R. Denning, "Cryptography and Data Security", Addison-Wesley, 1982,
> QA76.9.A25D461982

sigh.


mt

Matt Thomlinson                               
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.      phone: (206) 548-9804
Check my home page -- ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/phantom/home.html 
PGP 2.2 key available via email, or finger phantom@hardy.u.washington.edu

>> Funny thing; last year the computer administrators wouldn't even allow a 
>> copy of PGP to reside on their systems -- now it is part of their public 
>> account (student-run officially University unsupported software, usable 
>> by all). 

About six months ago I was going to to compile and install pgp in the
campus software library which is made available to hundreds of systems
distributed accross the campus.  I decided against it at the time
becuase I was unsure if anyone (namely the University) would be liable
for providing the pgp executable to the public without having a
liscence for the RSA algorithm.  I had pretty much abandoned the idea
until I saw this post.  If i'm correct, it's the resposibility of the
user to obtain a liscence which is why pgp is freely available at ftp
sites without putting the owner of the site at risk.  In this case
would the University be resposible for aquiring a liscence?  This also
brings up another question: is there anyone out there using freeware
pgp who has obtained a RSA licsence so they can use it legally?  Also
I'm curious if there are there any sysadmins out there that have made
pgp available to their users?


Andy Thomas 
aethomas@uci.edu

Andy Thomas <aethomas@uci.edu> wrote:

> >> Funny thing; last year the computer administrators wouldn't even allow a 
> >> copy of PGP to reside on their systems -- now it is part of their public 
> >> account (student-run officially University unsupported software, usable 
> >> by all). 
> 
> About six months ago I was going to to compile and install pgp in the
> campus software library which is made available to hundreds of systems
> distributed accross the campus.  I decided against it at the time
> becuase I was unsure if anyone (namely the University) would be liable
> for providing the pgp executable to the public without having a
> liscence for the RSA algorithm.  I had pretty much abandoned the idea
> until I saw this post.  If i'm correct, it's the resposibility of the
> user to obtain a liscence which is why pgp is freely available at ftp
> sites without putting the owner of the site at risk.  In this case
> would the University be resposible for aquiring a liscence?  This also
> brings up another question: is there anyone out there using freeware
> pgp who has obtained a RSA licsence so they can use it legally?  Also
> I'm curious if there are there any sysadmins out there that have made
> pgp available to their users?

Well, I went through a similiar situation with CMU, they told someone
(not me) that they wouldn't allow PGP to be in the campus software
library, so I put it in my personal directory and told everyone where to
get it, and they didn't complain.  It's in
/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr12/mg5n/pgp/pgp23A.tar.Z