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Modular arithmetic and cryptography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

J. B. Reade*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, The University, Manchester M13 9PL

Extract

Even the purest of pure mathematics can have a crucial influence on practical problems. In this article we show how a topic in pure mathematics (modular arithmetic) originally pursued for its own interest only, turns out to have unexpected application to an area of communication theory (cryptography). The fact that at the present time it is easy to construct large prime numbers but very difficult to factorise large composite numbers has made it possible to devise simple codes which are uncrackable by known methods.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1988

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References

Further reading

Landau, S., Primes, codes and the National Security Agency, Notices of the American Math. Soc., 30, 710 (1983).Google Scholar
Pomerance, C., Recent developments in primality testing, Math. Intelligencer, 3, 97105 (1981).Google Scholar