As your credit card is scanned one final time this holiday season, say thanks to prime numbers for keeping the checkout queues short and your money safe. Well, most of the time anyway.

Much of the cryptography that goes into beating credit-card fraud comes down to 3,5, 7 … 197, integers that can only be divided into themselves and 1. Banks randomly generate two very large primes — say, 150 digits long — and use their product to encrypt the payment authorization from the microchip of your card to the point-of-sale terminal.

QOSHE - Your Money May Not Survive a Quantum Heist - Andy Mukherjee
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Your Money May Not Survive a Quantum Heist

8 0
19.12.2023

As your credit card is scanned one final time this holiday season, say thanks to prime numbers for keeping the checkout queues short........

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