The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Cybersecurity …

The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Cybersecurity …

Oh, I miss Douglas Adam’s writing. I hung on every word of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Gallery and just loved the original BBC programme [here]. I even loved the movie [here], with its Hollywood feel! To me, only two other writers have ever come close to Douglas for exciting my interest in technology and science (and the cross-over into science-fiction)… Martin Gardner and Isaac Asimov.

For Douglas, the answer to life, the universe and everything was … 42. But, what’s the answer to life, the universe and cybersecurity? Well, it has probably got to be a prime number, as these are at the core of much of our security foundations. It is a prime number that secures our browser tunnels, it is a prime number that helps prove the identity of a Web server that you connect to, it is prime numbers that help prove our online identity, and it is a prime number that helps sign our cryptocurrency transactions.

And, so which prime number? Well, Satoshi Nakimota liked the secp256k1 curve, and which uses a prime number of [here]:

2²⁵⁶−2³²−2⁹−2⁸−2⁷−2⁶−2⁴−1

but, saying that out-loud is a bit of a monthful. Anyway, the method that it uses for creating digital signatures (ECDSA) does not quite scale into a distributed web. So what about the NIST-defined P-256 curve? Well, it has:

2²⁵⁶-2²²⁴+2¹⁹²+2⁹⁶-1

Again, not so easy to remember, and repeat back. I could also pick “561”, as it tricks the Fermat prime number test [here]. It’s an intruder — known as a Carmichael number — and pretends to be a prime number, but actually has three factors (3, 11 or 17). It is also joined by 1,105, 1,729, 2,465, 2,821 … and an infinite amount of other intruders. So, I can’t use 561, as I’d have to include all the other intruders.

And, so my pick for a number is:

It is so cool, and you can just say … Curve 25519. For some reason … I don’t know why, but I just hear David Bowie sing “My Curve 2,55, 1, 9”, in the same way he sung “My TVC, 1,5” [here]. It is a curve that is now providing the core of security on the Internet. With key exchange, we have X25519, and for digital signatures, it is Ed25519. Many organisations, such as IOTA, are now moving their digital signatures towards this very special signature method, and at its core is 2²⁵⁵-19. These signatures are often known as EdDSA, and will allow for distributed computing, along with aggregated signing.

Anyway, here it is, in all its glory:

https://asecuritysite.com/curve25519/

So, for secure tunnels, providing identity, signing for things, and just being great, my pick is the mighty 2²⁵⁵-19. All I can say to kids at school, please fall in love with maths, we are really going to need great minds to build our future.