What Happens if RSA Encryption Is Broken?

[David Carroll]

What would happen if, say for example, someone were to solve the RSA problem and found some mega-thrifty algorithm to factorize integers? How would society be effected? Would the internet even be safe any longer? Or other forms of communication?

 

[TheDemx27]

Well, if someone cracked 1024, I'd supposed everyone would raise the standard to 2048 and so on. But if the internet existed without any encryption, I like to think that the world would be like the one portrayed in Mirror's Edge, where people would use the sneakernet. Of course, there are other encryption algorithms other than RSA, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTRUEncrypt.

 

[DavidSnider]

Being able to efficiently factor large semiprime integers would only compromise Asymmetric crypto. Symmetric crypto would not be affected.