Question

although traffic analysis, tempest attacks, viruses and trojan horses are all useful techniques for gathering information, cryptanalysts realize that their real goal is to find a way of cracking the rsa cipher, the cornerstone of modern encryption. the rsa cipher is used to protect the most important military, diplomatic, commercial and criminal communications—exactly the messages that intelligence - gathering organizations want to decipher. if they are to challenge strong rsa encryption, cryptanalysts will need to make a major theoretical or technological breakthrough. what is the central idea of this paragraph? breaking rsa code is the greatest challenge for cryptanalysts. the rsa cipher secures much of the worlds important information. information gathering will fail without new technology development. the trojan horse technique is most effective in data gathering.

Explanation:

The paragraph states that while there are various information - gathering techniques, the real goal of cryptanalysts is to crack the RSA cipher, which is crucial for protecting important communications. It emphasizes that a major theoretical or technological breakthrough is needed to challenge strong RSA encryption. So, the central idea is about the challenge of breaking the RSA code for cryptanalysts.

Answer:

Breaking RSA code is the greatest challenge for cryptanalysts.