Hi Cypherpunks and e$-ers. After having read Adleman's Sci Am article, I couldn't help but ask him... :-) The following message is re-posted with his permission Ciao jfa ==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE================== From: Len Adleman <xxxxxxxx> To: Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon@citenet.net> Subject: Re: Your article in Scientific American and RSA Thank you for the kind words regarding the Sci Am article. I have thought about using DNA for breaking cryptosystems. It does appear convievable that a code like DES could be broken. However, because RSA can simply increase the size of keys to overcome whatever computing power DNA provides, I do not think it represents a threat to RSA. We of course have a long way to go to see whether we can actually get DNA to live up to its potential. If you are unfamiliar with quantum computation I think you might enjoy reading about it - it, at least in theory, could represent a threat to RSA. I believe that you can find info on the www. -Len Jean-Francois Avon wrote:

Greetings.

Your article in SciAm blew my mind!

I bought the magazine after having seen it because of my interest/inquietude of new computing ways that could break RSA (and similar public key) encryption schemes.

The most fantastic thing is that I bought the magazine after having browsed the article but without even having read who was the author of the article! [laughs]

Now, here is my question, which you *surely* figured out: can a method could be devised (using DNA computing) that would decrease the security of RSA? And if yes, what would it imperil ( keys, individual cyphertext, etc?)

I could not see a trivial way of effecting multiplication and division, but then, maths have never been my forte... ;-)

Any comments?

Highest regards

jfa ===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE===================

Jean-Francois Avon, B.Sc. Physics, Montreal, Canada DePompadour, Société d'Importation Ltée Limoges fine porcelain and french crystal JFA Technologies, R&D physicists & engineers Instrumentation & control, LabView programming PGP keys: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html PGP ID:C58ADD0D:529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 PGP ID:5B51964D:152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C