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posted by martyb on Saturday August 24 2019, @05:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-the-factoring dept.

From ArsTechnica . . .

Alleged "Snake Oil" Crypto Company Sues Over Boos at Black Hat:

Grant's presentation, entitled "Discovery of Quasi-Prime Numbers: What Does this Mean for Encryption," was based on a paper called "Accurate and Infinite Prime Prediction from a Novel Quasi-PrimeAnalytical Methodology." That work was published in March of 2019 through Cornell University's arXiv.org by Grant's co-author Talal Ghannam—a physicist who has self-published a book called The Mystery of Numbers: Revealed through their Digital Root as well as a comic book called The Chronicles of Maroof the Knight: The Byzantine. The paper, a slim five pages, focuses on the use of digital root analysis (a type of calculation that has been used in occult numerology) to rapidly identify prime numbers and a sort of multiplication table for factoring primes.

[...] The Black Hat talk did not go smoothly. People had to be ejected from the room by security because they were heckling and booing Grant.

[...] Cryptographers were extremely skeptical, with some referring to the talk as "snake oil crypto." Even before the event, Mark Carney, a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds, wrote a paper refuting the claims Grant and Ghannam had made in theirs.

Well that could have gone better. Maybe the court trial will be more orderly.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:47PM (#884857)

    Maybe my google-fu sucks today but I can't seem to find the video of the talk in question (I want to see the audience reactions, not the splashy promo video). Conference organizers admit scrubbing their site/youtube of the Crown Sterling talk so could this be the main complaint of the lawsuit (they paid for promotion and Blackhat violated the contract by removing the video/slides?) I seriously doubt anyone could win damages simply from being mocked/booed while presenting their ideas. Surely the attendees reactions can not be considered to be part of the sponsorship package.