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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:16:55 ADT
David Honig (honig@alum.mit.edu)
Wed, 08 Apr 1998 11:12:31 -0700
At 11:33 AM 4/8/98 -0400, Kriston J. Rehberg wrote:
>Pardon the question, but does Elliptic Curve Cryptography avoid the
>the use of large primes, or does it merely make them fantastically
>large?
Fine question, though you might look for some intro literature on the net
as a general learning strategy.
ECC exploits a different chunk of mathematics entirely
in its easy-in-one-direction-tough-in-the-other (so-called "one way")
function. Systems which use large primes (e.g., RSA, Diffie-Hellman, etc.)
must use lots o' bits because you need really huge (e.g., 1024-bit) numbers
to make them tough to factor. ECC uses much smaller keys because its
one-way strength grows faster as the key length grows.
A one way function can be undone if someone figures out a new formula to
solve the problem (analytic approach) or if someone figures out how to
grind faster solutions out (either through brute force or some implementation
finesse, e.g., quantum/autistic factoring :-).
------------------------------------------------------------
David Honig Orbit Technology
honig@otc.net Intaanetto Jigyoubu
When exponentiation is outlawed, only outlaws will exponentiate.
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:16:55 ADT