Seeking a Cryptographic High, Not a Chemical One
Description
A screenshot of a text message conversation that creates a humorous misunderstanding between two very different worlds. The first message, sent by the seller, is an image showing numerous small plastic bags of what appears to be marijuana, with the follow-up text 'What you need'. The recipient, presumably a programmer or mathematician, replies with a completely unexpected request: 'Bruh I just wanna be able to solve integer factorization in polynomial time'. The seller, clearly confused by the highly technical and abstract plea, responds, 'Aye man I just sell drugs idk'. The humor stems from the collision of street-level commerce with high-level computational theory. Solving integer factorization in polynomial time is a famous unsolved problem in computer science, the difficulty of which underpins the security of many cryptographic systems like RSA. For a senior developer, the joke is a hilarious non-sequitur that equates a world-changing mathematical breakthrough with a simple street transaction
Comments
7Comment deleted
Some of us are trying to break RSA encryption, others are just trying to break bread. It's all about finding the right keys
At this point I trust the street dealer more than the vendor demos - he’s the only one who’ll admit polynomial-time factoring isn’t on the Q4 roadmap
This dealer's about to learn that breaking RSA encryption is harder to deliver than any substance - though solving integer factorization in polynomial time would certainly be more valuable than anything in those bags, considering it would instantly compromise every bank's security and earn you a million-dollar Millennium Prize
When you're trying to break RSA encryption but accidentally text your old college connection instead of your cryptography research group. To be fair, both industries deal with 'breaking things down into smaller components' - one just has significantly different legal implications and computational complexity classes
If your dealer can deliver polynomial-time factoring, reclassify them as a nation-state and rotate off RSA before the receipt prints
Wrong plug - I needed Shor’s algorithm; if you can factor 2048‑bit RSA in polynomial time, we’ll skip the deal and trigger an emergency global key rotation
Shor's algorithm who? This deal breaks RSA faster than a zero-day in your keygen