🚀 go-pugleaf

RetroBBS NetNews Server

Inspired by RockSolid Light RIP Retro Guy

Article View: alt.security.pgp
Article #5

Re: Prime generation, a possible weakness in PGP?

#5
From: Derek Atkins
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 04:49
23 lines
1647 bytes
	- then use Fermat's theorem 4 times
	  (Fermat's theorem:  if  b**(n-1) != 1 (mod n), then
	  'n' cannot be a prime. This requires that 'b' and 'n'
	  are relatively prime.)

In all the numbers less than 10^12 (or something like that), 
the Fermat test using b=2 will fail (i.e., give a false positive
reading) for only 15000 numbers.  Thats 15000 out of 10^12!  Thats
like 1 in 10^8, which are worse odds than you winning the lottery!

Now, if you iterate this four times, you increase your odds,
probabalistically, of having a good number.  Yes, you do have to
worry about the Carmichael numbers (since there are an infinity of
them), however there are far fewer Carmichael numbers than there
are primes.

-derek
--
         Derek Atkins -- MIT '93 -- Electrical Engineering
--warlord@MIT.EDU | ..!mit-eddie!mit-athena!warlord | s20069@mitvma.bitnet
      Chairman, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
           MIT Media Laboratory, Speech Research Group
Technical Details
Message-ID: <WARLORD.92Oct8004937@m66-080-20.mit.edu>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tamsun.tamu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!news.mit.edu!warlord
References: <ARI.HUTTUNEN.92Sep27174550@laphroaig.cs.hut.fi>

Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Newsgroups: alt.security.pgp,sci.crypt
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tamsun.tamu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!news.mit.edu!warlord
From: warlord@MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)
Subject: Re: Prime generation, a possible weakness in PGP?
In-Reply-To: Ari.Huttunen@hut.fi's message of Sun, 27 Sep 1992 15:45:52 GMT
Message-ID: <WARLORD.92Oct8004937@m66-080-20.mit.edu>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Nntp-Posting-Host: m66-080-20.mit.edu
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
References: <ARI.HUTTUNEN.92Sep27174550@laphroaig.cs.hut.fi>
Distribution: alt
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 04:49:50 GMT
Lines: 23