Why are primes important in cryptography?
- by Michael Stum
One thing that always strikes me as a non-cryptographer: Why is it so important to use Prime numbers? What makes them so special in cryptography?
Does anyone have a simple short explanation? (I am aware that there are many primers and that Applied Cryptography is the Bible, but as said: I am not looking to implement my own cryptographic algorithm, and the stuff that I found just made my brain explode - no 10 pages of math formulas please :))
Thanks for all the answers. I've accepted the one that made the actual concept most clear to me.