> from what I've seen, there's a lot of "obscurity" to this; there are many seemingly arbitrary choices all over the place.
When is a (7-/pk/win)zip compression algo not an encryption algorithm?
Do the use of certain mathematical functions make it an encryption algo?
I've always found the use of prime numbers in some encryption algo's to be a red herring, namely because in theory there are an infinite number of primes, but in practice your computing device can only use 1 from a finite number of primes otherwise it would take too long to encrypt something.
With this in mind, do primes actually make it easier to decrypt encrypted data?
>What's worse is that I fear there are incentives (mostly political/security interests) to keep the field small
Discussions like this ie communication poke light into those dark crevices of intellectuality.
When is a (7-/pk/win)zip compression algo not an encryption algorithm?
Do the use of certain mathematical functions make it an encryption algo?
I've always found the use of prime numbers in some encryption algo's to be a red herring, namely because in theory there are an infinite number of primes, but in practice your computing device can only use 1 from a finite number of primes otherwise it would take too long to encrypt something.
With this in mind, do primes actually make it easier to decrypt encrypted data?
>What's worse is that I fear there are incentives (mostly political/security interests) to keep the field small
Discussions like this ie communication poke light into those dark crevices of intellectuality.