Gordon Watts over at Life as a Physicist describes a cool response to (crank) manuscripts purporting to factor large numbers (via The Old New Thing). This reminds me of a scam I once dreamed up. The scam would consist of an email like the one here:
Dear sir or madam!
In today’s modern world, an increasing amount of the world’s commerce is performed over the internet. Most people believe that such financial transactions over the internet are perfectly secure. They do not hesistate to send their credit card over “so-called” secure connections because they have been told by computer scientists that such transactions are secure. But are these transactions really secure? The main reason for the claims of security for these transaction is “that it is hard to factor large numbers?” But why should it be hard to factor large numbers. Certainly my computer can multiply large numbers very rapidly!
Recently, I was pondering this question with deep thought and it occured to me that indeed, rapid factoring of large numbers is indeed possible. In a brilliant flash of insight I have develope a new and revolutionary method for factoring large numbers. Thus I can break the codes used to protect your credit card transactions. That’s right: I can steal money from you the next time you use the internet. Now, I wouldn’t want to do this to you, an anonymous person who I am sure is a law abiding citizen. However, the U.S. patent office will not allow me to patent my algorithm for factoring. Thus I, the great discoverer of an amazing new algorithm will go away from my invention penniless. That’s not how capitalism is supposed to work is it. Thus I am willing to make the following deal with you. If you want to securely use your credit card over the internet again, I am willing to offer you protection from my algorithm for factoring large numbers. The Factoring Protection Plan(TM) will provide you total security for your internet transactions. And it only costs ten U.S. dollars a month. To subscribe to this plan, please click on this link.
Of course, you may not believe that my algorithm can be used to efficiently factor large numbers. But I’m willing to share some of my results with you. For example, when I ran my program on the number
18819881292060796383869723
94616504398071635633794173
82700763356422988859715234
66548531906060650474304531
73880113033967161996923212
05734031879550656996221305
168759307650257059
my program told me that this number is the product of
3980750864240649373971
2550055038649119906436
2342526708406385189575
946388957261768583317
and
4727721461074353025362
2307197304822463291469
5302097116459852171130
520711256363590397527
Amazing, no? Do you need any more proof that your next credit card transaction will not be secure?
I hope that you will make the correct decision and decide to subscribe to my
Yours,
The trapdoor breaker
That’s a pretty funny letter! 🙂
Those factors appear to be prime. Did you use Richard Crandall’s factor program to find them?
Along these same lines, the chairman of the Ohio State physics department told me that he had a form letter, to be sent to people who submitted personal Theories of Everything to him to publish.
The latter says, “I have not had time to examine your theory in detail. Could you just tell me what value you get for the anomalous dispersion coefficient?” He never gets an answer.
Ack! Don’t give them ideas!!
I admit that I actually thought about that before I posted this idea. If I ever see this email in my spambox boy am I going to feel silly!
To be fair to the cranks, quantum information probably sounds pretty similar to their ideas from a distance. Using almost no new physics, it develops a radically new theory of information and computing, predicting things like polytime factoring, information-theoretically secure key distribution, etc… We just never see these because our existing systems are too noisy, but you should give us a few billion dollars over a few decades and then we may have something to show you.
I think the moral of the story is that sometimes you have to look at the proof! And sometimes it’s legit when someone says they have the basic idea but haven’t worked out all the details.