HELP! * GREEN=global GREY=local Global HTML version of Foils prepared 10 November 1995

Foil 90 Factoring RSA Numbers and Security

From NII Technologies from WebTop Productivity to Computing Minnesota Presentations at Cray Research and University -- 13-14 November 95. by Geoffrey C. Fox * See also color IMAGE

RSA security systems based on numbers
  • RSAm = Prime1 * Prime2
  • A product of two large primes
  • RSAm has m decimal digits
  • RSA corporation recommends m>=200
Bank of England and English Savings and Loan based on m=155 (512 binary digits)
RSA129 cracked by factoring with email team using sophisticated version of Quadratic Sieve. RSA155 will use better Number Field Sieve
Need x2 = y2 mod(RSAm) as then gcd(x+y,RSAm) likely to be interesting factor
Find x and y by finding lots of interesting a's
  • a = product of small primes = b2 mod(RSAm)
Given these a's factored into primes, multiply together so powers of primes are even. This gves desired x
This last step requires graph theory and solution (for Bank of England) of 5 million linear equations


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