alt Hacker NewsCryptographic systems are based on 1) mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation, 2) time required for a brute force attack, 3) correctness of algorithms and code used in implementations. The last part (algorithms and code) is where LLMs have a chance.
The first one is not similar to the mathematical breakthroughs LLMs are making recently. There is a loss of information in mods and integer computations making them one-way. The second one requires simply increasing bit-length to match the increased computer power.
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> mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation
No, there's no proof that most crypto "calculations" are impossible to reverse. That's why algorithms got weakened by researchers regularly. As of now, it's totally possible someone finds an algorithm to break a next one tomorrow. They just haven't found it yet.
> 1) mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation
You are describing asymmetric encryption. This article was talking about symmetric encryption.
Symmetric encryption is generally considered much harder to break than asymmetric encryption
Yeah, I wouldn’t say with certainty that LLMs will never break any symmetrical crypto algorithm. It will certainly require a lot of effort, but so does solving some hard math challenges and it has been proven successful in that in the past.
Most likely outcome will be that a security researcher is able to break one with assistance of / in collaboration with an LLM.
> mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation > There is a loss of information in mods and integer computations making them one-way
That's not correct. Trapdoor functions aren't one way because they destroy information, and if they were they wouldn't be very useful because you wouldn't be able to go back the other way (i.e. decrypt the text). You'd end up with many possible inputs for a given output, like a hash.