Algorithms For Dummies

Creating Unique Identifiers

It seems as if we’re all just a number. Actually, not just one number — lots and lots 

of numbers. Each of our credit cards has a number, as does our driver license, as 

does our government identifier, as do all sorts of other businesses and organiza-

tions. People actually have to keep lists of all of the numbers because they simply 

have too many to track. Yet, each of these numbers must identify the person uniquely 

to some party. Behind all of this uniqueness are various kinds of algorithms.

Chapter 7 discusses hashes, which are one way to ensure uniqueness. Underlying 

both hashes and cryptography is integer factorization, a kind of algorithm that 

breaks really large numbers into prime numbers. In fact, integer factorization is 

one of the hardest kinds of problems to solve with algorithms, but people are 

working on the problem all the time. So much of society today depends on your 

ability to identify yourself uniquely that the hidden secrets of creating these iden-

tifiers is an essential part of a modern world.

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CHAPTER 22