Schnorr Gaffed Earlier This Year on a Published Paper You've | Libre Blockchain

Schnorr Gaffed Earlier This Year on a Published Paper

You've heard of "Schnorr's Signatures" before, right? Its an amazing concept & breakthrough in cryptography that earned the scheme's author, Peter Schnorr, well-deserved notoriety in the field of cryptography.

His reputation precedes him & he is widely respected and acknowledged in the field of cryptography.

Schnorr Claimed He Broke RSA Encryption Earlier This Year

This claim by Schnorr was so profound in its implications, that many of his colleagues questioned whether the paper (pre-print) was actually authored by Schnorr (vs. imposter) when it first began circulating around the internet.

Such a claim drew attention from virtually any and everyone that ever cared (even a tiny bit) about cryptography because 'destroying' the RSA cryptosystem would imply that Schnorr had not only just shattered one of the world's most reliable, long-standing & popular crypto systems known to man - but that he had also essentially made a Nobel Prize worthy breakthrough in the field of mathematics of such profundity that we'd need to re-think many of our core fundamental assumptions about factor difficulty.

Schnorr's Peers in Cryptography Largely Dismissed His Claims as Unsubstantiated

Imagine asking a girl out to prom. In front of your entire school. And all of your friends are there filming. The girl comes out and you surprise her with your flowers and a card saying, "Will you go to prom with me?"

And she says..."No."

That's sort of the equivalent of what happened to Schnorr's in this situation (among his colleagues & peers that assessed the paper).