E-commerce coming to an end?

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

(Sorry I wasn't sure where to put this - Internet and WWW seemed more interent connection problems and such)

Originally Posted by vnunet Mathematicians are close to solving a 150 year-old theory - and the solution could add up to problems for internet commerce. The Riemann hypothesis, formulated by Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann in 1859, would explain the apparently random pattern of prime numbers. Such numbers are the key to internet cryptography and help banks keep customer's credit card data safe and secure. Louis de Branges, a French-born mathematician at Purdue University in the US, has claimed to have proof of the Riemann hypothesis, according to The Guardian. The hypothesis is one of seven 'millennium problems'.

http://www.vnunet.com/news/1157891

It also has a comment by Marcus De Sautoy, I attending one of his letures, saying that maybe the proof is not completley 100%, but if it is...

[mbossman2]

it could cause issues, but I am sure that someone will develop an alternate method of encryption or verification.

When one door closes, several doors open up

[doctorgonzo]

This article is a bit over the top. Public-key cryptography can use many mathematical functions to work, such as factoring prime numbers, discrete logarithms, elliptical curves, and so on. This article doesn't say whether proving the Riemann Hypothesis will help make factoring primes faster, one of the "hard" mathematical problems, to say nothing about how this may affect other problems. E-commerce and cryptography aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

[Yuanji]

if anything, i think that this breakthrough will drive people to find other more complex ways of encryption

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

You never know this could be a false alarm anyway, but also the person wanting to decrypt your details has to get them somehow first. And more complex ways wouldn't hurt, and I aggree with mbossman: When one door closes, several doors open up.

[doctorgonzo]

Originally Posted by WhatsThisBoxFor? ...but also the person wanting to decrypt your details has to get them somehow first.

I bet that more fraud is committed when your waiter or waitress writes down your credit card number when you pay for your meal than when somebody breaks SSL encryption and steals account info that way. The only difference is that computerized hacking gets in the news: "1 million accounts on AOL hacked!" and similar stories.

If you wanted to steal information, attacking SSL encryption is the absolute dumbest way to do it. Just dig around in a dumpster for account statements that have been thrown away. Simple.

[mbossman2]

Originally Posted by doctorgonzo I bet that more fraud is committed when your waiter or waitress writes down your credit card number when you pay for your meal than when somebody breaks SSL encryption and steals account info that way. The only difference is that computerized hacking gets in the news: "1 million accounts on AOL hacked!" and similar stories. If you wanted to steal information, attacking SSL encryption is the absolute dumbest way to do it. Just dig around in a dumpster for account statements that have been thrown away. Simple.

Bingo...credit card fraud is mainly a low tech crime (stolen physical cards, stolen statements, numbers copied from voluntaily surrendered cards etc). There are of course big time operators who are more high tech, but the majority for credit card fraud is low rent.