No it bloody doesn't.

[ciphergoth]

Mathematicians who know fuck all about crypto are fond of saying that their latest discovery might have crypto applications.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2146295.stm

In this case, as usual, it doesn't.

Why is it crypto, of all fields, that attracts this idea that you don't have to know a damn thing about it to innovate in it? All fields get crackpots, but even crackpots have a vision that there are people employed to do some research in this field already, whereas there seem to be an endless supply of people who act as if they are the first to think really hard about encryption.

Update: Whoops, I spoke too soon. It turns out that Carl Pomerance among others is involved in this research, so I guess it is legit. I'm surprised.

Comments

[lovingboth]

OK Paul, why are random series of numbers not applicable?

I take it innovation has low value

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about something similar last night. It seems to me that innovation for its own sake should be valued as much in crypto as in medicine, ie. not at all. A merely different encryption algorithm is, like a different antibiotic, good to have as a plan B in case the adversary manages to foil the first one ... pauses briefly to consider similarities between crypto and DNA information warfare, finds only superficial ones ... but unless there is some concrete benefit the risks would never justify deployment of the minority algorithm.

I honestly think you should write a book that explains in lay terms what crypto can and cannot do. One section should say: "There is no objective test that a certain algorithm encrypts effectively. Confidence is gained after a large number of well-motivated experts try in earnest to break the algorithm and fail." I now understand that this is correct, but I didn't a while ago, and I don't think it is widely understood.

Pavlos