Office of the Chief Scientist Outlines Some of the Maths That Keeps Your Money Safe. (July 27, 2012)

The Office of Australia's Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, has just released the third in its "Occasional Papers" series, Mathematics in Your Wallet by Allan Carey, Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Sciences Institute, ANU.

Professor Carey after asking rhetorically "Do you have a credit card with a chip, or an e-passport," follows with: "If so, you use mathematics to keep your personal information secret. This paper explains some of the methods that help to keep your money, personal details and identity safe everyday."

He explains the use of cryptography in the modem banking system citing the RSA public key encryption system noting that "RSA works because finding the two original prime numbers or factors for the public key is difficult. Should someone come up with a practical way to find the factors for the public keys then RSA will no longer be secure. In this case, other encryption techniques will become necessary to secure information".

Professor Carey concludes his short paper with:

Mathematics is arguably the most fundamental of all sciences. It can give us unexpected practical applications with enormous economic value. The development of both Wi-Fi and encryption technologies resulted from an understanding of fundamental mathematics.
 

Mathematics is expected to play an increasingly important role in protecting personal information and safeguarding e-commerce. The threats to personal information and our economy are a matter of national security. As our economy becomes increasingly reliant on information and knowledge we must ensure that more Australians are trained in mathematics and related disciplines.