Equinox/cypherpunks/www

[James A. Tunnicliffe]

> Anyone that missed or was unable to get the UK TV programme Equinox
> might like to take a look at:
>
>   
http://www.cityscape.co.uk/channel4/big_bytes/cybersecrecy/cyber000.html
>
> - Andy

Thanks for the pointer.  I was reading through their nicely
organized gentle introduction to basic concepts, when I nearly
sprayed coffee all over my monitor from laughing so hard at
the following gaffe:

"...most modern codes rely on the intractable mathematical
problem of 'factorisation'. This is the process of trying to
find the two prime factors that, multiplied together, would
give you a third prime number. [JT: Yes, I'd call that an
intractable problem, all right.] For example, if you take
3337 - a prime number (i.e. a number that has precisely two
divisors) - how would you find its two prime factors? (They
are, in fact, 47 and 71.)"

A little unclear on that "prime" thing, it sounds like... :-)

 - Tunny
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