Maths holy grail could bring disaster for internet

[Eric Cordian]

RAH pastes:

> Tim Radford, science editor
> Tuesday September 7, 2004

> The Guardian
> Mathematicians could be on the verge of solving two separate million dollar
> problems. If they are right - still a big if - and somebody really has
> cracked the so-called Riemann hypothesis, financial disaster might follow.
> Suddenly all cryptic codes could be breakable. No internet transaction
> would be safe.

Bullshit.  A constructive proof of NP=P would doom strong crypto.  A proof 
of the Riemann hypothesis MIGHT lead to polynomial time factoring, which 
would break RSA, but leave the rest of cryptography largely untouched.

The Guardian needs to raise the bar a bit for that which it alleges to be 
"Science Writing."

Louis de Branges "proves" the Riemann Hypothesis every year, by the way.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"