Episode 44 - P vs. NP

by Thomas Ditsworth

While many people rely on the internet for everything from casual emails to secure banking transactions, most don’t understand the security behind it. In this podcast, we will discuss a computer science problem that is the basis behind our most current methods of encryption. In turn, we will explore where the encryption is used, the math behind why it is so secure, and how further innovation could put it all in jeopardy.

References:
Baumhof, A. (2019, June 13). Andreas Baumhof. QuintessenceLabs.
https://www.quintessencelabs.com/blog/breaking-rsa-encryption-update-state-art

Hackerdashery. (2014, August 26). P vs. NP and the Computational Complexity Zoo
[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX40hbAHx3s&t=515s

Hardesty, L. (2009, October 29). Explained: P vs. NP. MIT News | Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. https://news.mit.edu/2009/explainer-pnp

Lake, J. (2021, March 18). What is RSA encryption and how does it work? Comparitech. https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/rsa-encryption/

Pavlus, J. (2020, April 2). What Does ‘P vs. NP’ Mean for the Rest of Us? MIT
Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/08/19/262224/what-does-p-vs-np-meanfor-the-rest-of-us

The Millennium Prize Problems | Clay Mathematics Institute. (2021, April 19). Clay
Mathematics Institute. https://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/millennium-prize-problems

Watson, J. (2017, March 16). Public key cryptography: What is it, how it works and how to use it in email and file encryption. Comparitech. https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/what-is-public-key-cryptography/

Audio From

Royalty Free Music by Bensound | Stock Music. (n.d.). BenSound. Retrieved March 31, 2021, from https://www.bensound.com/

For more information check out the following links to other resources about topics discussed in this podcast:
P vs NP and the Computational Complexity Zoo
Are you Ready for the Quantum Computing Revolution?

Image: Screenshot from “P vs. NP and the Computational Complexity Zoo.”