University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Math 471
Number Theory
Fall 2006
Click here to go the Main 471 Page
Class Extra Credit Project "MiniMe"
Put your pinky to your lip and get ready to play MiniMe, that lovable sidekick of, yes!, Dr. Evil. Using his Evil
Technology gained through years of toil during Evil Graduate School, your boss, Dr. Evil, has just intercepted a message sent by Austin
Powers to his boss, Basil Exposition. That dastardly International
Man of Mystery has used the RSA protocol under Basil's public
encryption key
n=474284397516047136454946754595585670574210565628123013238749512770825119233742749
e=131137
to send an 18-line message to Basil. You desperately need to decrypt
this message before Dr. Evil loses his patience and feeds to you
sharks with freekin' lasers attached to their heads! He's the boss! He
needs the info! So throw him a bone, people. Once you succeed, you
will get 18 numbers forming the decrypted message. Understanding the
message at that point is easy....Chop earch number into consecutive blocks
of size 2, each block represents a character according to the ASCII numbering
scheme -- look it up or use a convenient converter, for example from
http://www.paulschou.com/tools/xlate/
The message you have intercepted is:
m1=328419234424087725157371361128729614159009309554370106685588584774685989222691268
m2=436284458536358740659345192738847916349057473616727211458410554021934732718086250
m3=452796153110584601657779589601781713355242204143856457063536033441550558295773461
m4=276534505243003623191805558936848086229449760797043282788459374082521984898079596
m5=66772882695982547021227281066970848896473004529004049715531628998920222358363684
m6=182906215756426822879009377507888975547735136153634744447062714129752871788842777
m7=39466104332689260183237094016891022042823391965354786063774352366403602949553474
m8=356696305552900861377888422110601331704378839945796318252124086951519771418924987
m9=345724944196873507734039243063255707282788136967035627719156676618495991640950494
m10=150588920083337314616640713213932941809240413949361958720632764761891987061576748
m11=468466234983168052886486483604990265946651369944541235957519796922180196423948197
m12=363279702231999368560594900015566655914509211020275444186888028740310270661711661
m13=380716299908628510609914323570301814012146618924816087690803368376485391381112233
m14=277545869222131214521459302349210013589586189188417393399446813905701142739509592
m15=423178684734694562267434461115371168159337133553531278619752907616180715255769048
m16=109425872343222434461062362057013475408115164319002307837174900215427245901163981
m17=85685312245281072158323270422232466863596502851059818592791258532251557203311622
m18=391396084280383586655349024440707718007102212721525637027761118242023597454776420
Good luck! If any single one of your team members succeeds
in deciphering the message working alone or as part of a group before
the final exam, Dr. Evil will spare all of
your lives, and I will add one extra credit point to the FINAL GRADE
of every single student in the class.