【英语时差8,16】互联网密码安全与质数

Ever wonder how websites like Amazon.com keep your personal information, like credit card or check numbers, safe from the internet bad guys?   Well, here's the scoop¹. At the Amazon website you enter in your private info, press "send", and your internet browser² quickly encodes your data and sends it off to Amazon. To make sure no one but Amazon can view your info each code has a lock that can only be opened with the correct key, which Amazon has. This is where prime numbers come into play. Prime numbers are those divisible only by themselves and one, such as the numbers two, three, five, seven, eleven etc. Of course these are very small prime numbers, but there are infinitely³ many of them and they can get big; the biggest found so far is thirteen million digits⁴ long! The lock on the code protecting your private info is a very big number which is the unique product of two prime numbers, and the key to this lock is exactly these two primes. As a small example take the number fifteen. If this were our "lock" number then the two primes three and five would be our "key"; since both are prime and three times five is fifteen. Unlike the small example however for a larger "lock" number it is nearly impossible to find the two "key" primes if you don't already know them. The best computers in the world might take years to find the "key" primes of a "lock" number only three-hundred digits long. Thankfully websites like Amazon typically use "lock" numbers at least this big, thus making it nearly impossible for a bad guy to sneak⁵ a peak at your private info online.

1 scoop   

n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出

参考例句：

• In the morning he must get his boy to scoop it out.早上一定得叫佣人把它剜出来。
• Uh,one scoop of coffee and one scoop of chocolate for me.我要一勺咖啡的和一勺巧克力的。

2 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

3 infinitely   

adv.无限地，无穷地

参考例句：

• There is an infinitely bright future ahead of us.我们有无限光明的前途。
• The universe is infinitely large.宇宙是无限大的。

4 digits   

n.数字( digit的名词复数 )；手指，足趾

参考例句：

• The number 1000 contains four digits. 1000是四位数。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The number 410 contains three digits. 数字 410 中包括三个数目字。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

5 sneak   

vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行

参考例句：

• He raised his spear and sneak forward.他提起长矛悄悄地前进。
• I saw him sneak away from us.我看见他悄悄地从我们身边走开。