Tom Raftery’s Social Media

Louis de Branges, a French-born mathematician now at Purdue University in the US, is claiming a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. The Riemann hypothesis, if proved, would explain the apparently random pattern of prime numbers and consequently provide a way to predict primeness in numbers.

If true, the solution could undermine Internet security Systems by making predictable and solvable random data encryption. Encryption has been the backbone of secure Web transactions from the earliest days of e-commerce and also is used to secure e-mail and even stored data that contains corporate secrets or private information.

However, the proof is far from accepted by mathematicians and this acceptance could take some time as it is a complicated proof. Then it will take more time to come up with exploits so for now, I think it is safer to enter your credit card in an e-commerce transaction than to give it to the waiter at the restaurant or to a mail-order company via phone.