E-Commerce News: Security: Mathematical Solution Might Undermine Data Encryption

E-Commerce News: Security: Mathematical Solution Might Undermine Data Encryption

Mathematical Solution Might Undermine Data Encryption

By Keith Regan
E-Commerce Times
09/07/04 9:56 AM PT

Jim Carlson, president of the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told the E-Commerce Times that it's difficult to predict what the practical implications of the solution of the Riemann hypothesis might be, just as no one imagined that random number theory would give rise to Internet security solutions.


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Eyeing a million-dollar prize, a mathematician claims to have made progress in solving a 150-year-old riddle. The solution to the problem could render secure payments and other sensitive Internet transactions vulnerable.

A Purdue University professor has begun to publish what he claims is a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. The hypothesis, which dates from 1859, attempts to show that there in fact are connections in apparently random sets of prime numbers, which are heavily used in developing cryptographic code.