Neal Koblitz is a mathematician who, starting in the 1980s, became fascinated by mathematical questions in cryptography. In his article "The Uneasy Relationship Between Mathematics and Cryptography," ...

"Large bureaucracies, with the power that the computer gives them, become more powerful," said New York Times reporter David Burnham in a 1983 C-Span interview about his book The Rise of the Computer ...

A graduate student recently harnessed the complexity of mathematical proofs to create a powerful new tool in cryptography.

Quantum computing is widely believed to be a revolutionary new technology. In fact, it is a double-edged sword. If efficient quantum computers can be manufactured in near future, many of the current ...

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Mathematicians are often stereotyped as strictly logical, almost robotic, allowing no time for emotions to affect their work. For Daniel Larsen, this has never been true — in fact, it’s been the ...

In 1994, the computer scientist Peter Shor discovered that if quantum computers were ever invented, they would decimate much of the infrastructure used to protect information shared online. That ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In our increasingly digital lives, security depends on cryptography. Send a private message or pay a bill online, and you’re relying on ...

Cryptography is just about as old as written communication itself, and mathematics has long supplied methods for the cryptographic toolbox. Starting in the 1970s, increasingly sophisticated ...