On Friday, February 8, 2013 7:31:34 PM UTC, Nick wrote:
In message , Rod Speed
writes
"ARW" wrote in message
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21382663
Why is it only "thought" to be the largest prime number ever
identified?
Because somebody wanted to cover their arse just in case they hadn't
checked the literature properly

Because (large) prime numbers are used in all encryption systems.
Not so. They aren't used in symmetric encryption (where the same key is
used for encryption and decryption). They also aren't used in elliptic
curve asymmetric encryption.

Having said that, because of patents (spit) on elliptic curve
cryptography, there is an awful lot of cryptography which depends on
on prime numbers.

These
systems rely for security on no-one being able to predict where to find
'new' or existing primes. If someone has worked out how to do it, they
won't shout about it because they'll be in control of everybody else's
private information.
That depends on who finds out how to predict where prime numbers are.
Doing so would be Fields medal material (Nobel prize for mathematicians),
so academics would publish like a shot. OTOH, if the discoverer works for
NSA, GCHQ, Russian equivalent, Chinese equivalent, etc, they will will
keep very sputum indeed.