[LAU] How can we convert money to fixing bugs in software?

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Fri, Aug 03, 2012 at 05:27:51PM +0200, Patrick Shirkey wrote:

> There is NO PROOF that the factoring of the products of large primes is a
> fundamentally 'hard' mathematical problem. It's likely a fast algorithm
> exists and is already in the hands of several governments.

BS. There is plently of evidence that it is a very hard problem,
there's just no proof that no solution exist.

Image for a second that the USA government would know a method
to factor any product of two large primes. Then it would have
to to consider the possibility that

* another goverment would find out the same, giving it access
  to most of the financial and economic infrastructure of the
  USA,

* or some private researcher finds it, goes public and all hell
  breaks loose.

In either case the damage would be on scale that even good old
O.B.L. couldn't dream of.

Keeping such a thing secret for any time would be the most stupid
and irresponsible thing one could imagine. No USA government,
democratic, republican or neocon would ever do that.

What would happen if someone finds such a method and has any 
good sense would be that in a matter of months all RSA based
cryptography would disappear from all  systems that have any
strategic signficance. And that wouldn't go unnoticed.


> We are all exposed on the internet ;-)

Most people just expose themselves. For example I wonder why
the owner of a business with 'subsidiaries' and 'partners'
(enough to keep one busy I'd think) is wasting his time trying
to make some petty money with a commercial website on Linux
audio. I can only assume that Boost Hardware Ltd. is going
all fours up, don't need to read your emails for that.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)