The bolding is mine, because if in fact the agency did crack the encryption schemes used for bank transactions (the Times is somewhat unclear on that point), then in doing so it may have solved a math ...

Like a mirror image of Bedford's Law, mathematicians have found a pattern in prime numbers that raises more questions than it answers. Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on X (opens in a ...

In 1998, Ask Ars was an early feature of the newly launched Ars Technica. Now, as then, it's all about your questions and our community's answers. We occasionally dig into our question bag, provide ...

A large chunk of the global economy now rests on public key cryptography. We generally agree that with long enough keys, it is infeasible to crack things encoded that way. Until such time as it isn’t, ...

Internet security firm RSA Security is challenging individuals to test the strength of its algorithms in its latest crypto Factoring Challenge, with a cash prize of up to $200,000 at stake.