HELP! * GREY=local LOCAL HTML version of Foils prepared March 22,1995

Foil 19 Factoring RSA Numbers and Security

From Overview of WebWindows March 95 CRPC Annual Meeting Houston -- March 21-24,1995. 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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