IV054 CHAPTER 5: Public-key cryptography

Rapidly increasing needs for flexible and secure transmission of

information require to use new cryptographic methods.
The main disadvantage of the classical cryptography is the need
to send a (long) key through a super secure channel before
sending the message itself.

In secret-key (symetric key) cryptography both sender and

receiver share the same secret key.
In public-key ryptography there are two different keys:

a public encryption key

and
a secret decryption key (at the receiver side).

Public-key cryptography 1
IV054 Basic idea - example

Basic idea: If it is infeasible from the knowledge of an encryption algorithm ek to

construct the corresponding description algorithm dk, then ek can be made public.
Toy example: (Telephone directory encryption)
Start: Each user U makes public a unique telephone directory tdU to encrypt
messages for U and U is the only user to have an inverse telephone directory itdU.
Encryption: Each letter X of a plaintext w is replaced, using the telephone directory
tdU of the intended receiver U, by the telephone number of a person whose name
starts with letter X.
Decryption: easy for Uk, with an inverse telephone directory, infeasible for others.

Analogy:
Secret-key cryptography 1. Put the message into a box, lock it with a padlock and
send the box. 2. Send the key by a secure channel.

Public-key cryptography Open padlocks, for each user different one, are freely
available. Only legitimate user has key from his padlocks. Transmission: Put the
message into the box of the intended receiver, close the padlock and send the box.

Public-key cryptography 2
IV054 Public Establishment of Secret Keys

Main problem of the secret-key cryptography: a need to make a secure

distribution (establishment) of secret keys ahead of transmissions.
Diffie+Hellman solved this problem in 1976 by designing a protocol for secure key
establishment (distribution) over public channels.
Protocol: If two parties, Alice and Bob, want to create a common secret key, then
they first agree, somehow, on a large prime p and a primitive root q (mod p) and
then they perform, through a public channel, the following activities.
• Alice chooses, randomly, a large 1  x < p -1 and computes
X = q x mod p.
• Bob also chooses, again randomly, a large 1  y < p -1 and computes
Y = q y mod p.
• Alice and Bob exchange X and Y, through a public channel, but keep x, y secret.
• Alice computes Y x mod p and Bob computes X y mod p and then each of them
has the key K = q xy mod p.
An eavesdropper seems to need, in order to determine x from X, q, p and y from Y,
q, p, to have a capability to compute discrete logarithms, or to compute q xy from q
x and q y, what is believed to be infeasible.

Public-key cryptography 3
IV054 MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE ATTACK

The following attack by a man-in-the-middle is possible against the Diffie-Hellman

key establishment protocol.
1. Eve chooses an exponent z.
2. Eve intercepts q x and q y.
3. Eve sends q z to both Alice and Bob. (After that Alice believes she has received q x
and Bob believes he has received q y.)
4. Eve computes KA = q xz (mod p) and KB = q yz (mod p) .
Alice, not realizing that Eve is in the middle, also computes KA and
Bob, not realizing that Eve is in the middle, also computes KB.

5. When Alice sends a message to Bob, encrypted with KA, Eve intercepts it,
decrypts it, then encrypts it with KB and sends it to Bob.
6. Bob decrypts the message with KB and obtains the message. At this point he
has no reason to think that communication was insecure.
7. Meanwhile, Eve enjoys reading Alice's message.

Public-key cryptography 4
IV054 Blom's key pre-distribution protocol

allows to a trusted authority (Trent) to distributed secret keys to n (n - 1) / 2 pairs of

n users.
Let a large prime p > n be publically known. The protocol has the following steps:
1. Each user U in the network is assigned, by Trent, a unique public number rU < p.
2. Trent chooses three random numbers a, b and c, smaller than p.
3. For each user U, Trent calculates two numbers
aU = (a + brU) mod p, bU = (b + crU) mod p
and sends them via his secure channel to U.
4. Each user U creates the polynomial
gU (x) = aU + bU (x).
5. If Alice (A) wants to send a message to Bob (B), then Alice computes her key
KAB = gA (rB) and Bob computes his key KBA = gB (rA).
6. It is easy to see that KAB = KBA and therefore Alice and Bob can now use their
(identical) keys to communicate using some secret-key cryptosystem.

Public-key cryptography 5
IV054 Secure communication with secret-key cryptosystems

without any need forsecret key distribution

(Shamir's no-key algorithm)
Basic assumption: Each user X has its own
secret encryption function eX
secret decryption function dX
and all these functions commute (to form a commutative cryptosystem).

Communication protocol
with which Alice can send a message w to Bob.
1. Alice sends eA (w) to Bob
2. Bob sends eB (eA (w)) to Alice
3. Alice sends dA (eB (eA (w))) = eB (w) to Bob
4. Bob performs the decryption to get dB (eB (w)) = w.
Disadvantage: 3 communications are needed (in such a context 3 is a much too
large number) .
Advantage: A perfect protocol for distribution of secret keys.
Public-key cryptography 6
IV054 Cryptography and Computational Complexity

Modern cryptography uses such encryption methods that no ``enemy'' can have
enough computational power and time to do encryption (even those capable to use
thousands of supercomputers for tens of years for encryption).
Modern cryptography is based on negative and positive results of complexity
theory - on the fact that for some algorithm problems no efficient algorithm seem to
exists, surprisingly, and for some of “small'' modifications of these problems,
surprisingly, simple, fast and good enough (randomized) algorithms do exist.

Integer factorization: Given n (= pq), find p, q - unfeasible.

There is a list of ”most wanted to factor integers''. Top current successes, using
thousands of computers for months.
(*) Factorization of 2 2^9 + 1 with 155 digits (1996)
(**) Factorization of a “typical'' 155-digits integer (1999)

Primes recognition: Is a given n a prime? - fast randomized algorithms exist.

The existence of polynomial deterministic algorithms has been shown only in 2002

Public-key cryptography 7
IV054 Cryptography and Computational Complexity

Discrete logarithm problem: Given x, y, n, compute a such that y  x a

(mod n) - unfeasible.

Discrete square root problem: Given y, n, compute x such that y  x 2

(mod n) - infeasible in general, easy if n is prime.

Knapsack problem: Given a knapsack vector X = (x1,…,xn) and


n
knapsack capacity c, find binary vector (b1,…,bn) such that i1 bi xi  c.
Problem is NP-hard in general, but easy if xi   j 1 x j , 1  i  n.
i 1

Public-key cryptography 8
IV054 One-way functions
Informally, a function F:N -> N is said to be one-way function if it is easily
computable - in polynomial time - but any computation of its inverse is infeasible.
A one-way permutation is a 1-1 one-way function.
easy
x f(x)
computation infeasible
A more formal approach
Definition A function f:{0,1}*  {0,1}* is called a strongly one-way function if the
following conditions are satisfied:
1. f can be computed in polynomial time;
2. there are c, e > 0 such that |x|e  |f(x)|  |x|c;
3. for every randomized polynomial time algorithm A, and any constant c > 0,
there exists an nc such that for n > nc
 
Pr A f x   f 1  f x  
1
nc
.

Candidates: Modular exponentiation: f(x) = a x mod n

Modular squaring f(x) = x 2 mod n, n - a Blum integer
Prime number multiplication f(p, q) = pq.
Public-key cryptography 9
IV054 Trapdoor One-way Functions

The key concept for design of public-key cryptosystems is that of trapdoor one-
way functions.
A function f :X  Y is trapdoor one-way function
• if f and its inverse can be computed efficiently,
• yet even the complete knowledge of the algorithm to compute f does not
make it feasible to determine a polynomial time algorithm to compute inverse
of f.
A candidate: modular squaring with a fixed modulus.
- computation of discrete square roots is unfeasible in general, but quite easy if the
decomposition of the modulus into primes is known.
One way to design a trapdoor one-way function is to transform an easy case of a
hard (one-way) function to a hard-looking case of such a function, that can be,
however, solved easily by those knowing how the above transformation was
performed.

Public-key cryptography 10
IV054 Example - Computer passwords

A naive solution is to keep in computer a file with entries as

login CLINTON password BUSH,
that is with logins and corresponding passwords. This is not sufficiently safe.

A more safe method is to keep in the computer a file with entries as

login CLINTON password BUSH one-way function f c

The idea is that BUSH is a “public'' password and CLINTON is the only one
that knows a “secret'' password, say MADONA, such that
f c(MADONA) = BUSH

Public-key cryptography 11
 LAMPORT’s ONE-TIME PASSWORDS

One-way functions can be used to create a sequence of passwords:

• Alice chooses a random w and computes, using a one-way function

h, a sequence of passwords
w, h(w), h(h(w)),…,hn(w)
• Alice then transfers securely (??????) ``the initial secret’’ w0=hn(w)
to Bob.
• The i-th authentication, 0 < i < n+1, is performed as follows:

------- Alice sends wi=hn-i(w) to Bob

------- Bob checks whether wi-1=h(wi).

When the number of identifications reaches n, a new w has to be

chosen.

Public-key cryptography 12
IV054 General knapsack problem - unfeasible

KNAPSACK PROBLEM: Given an integer-vector X = (x1,…,xn) and an integer c.

Determine a binary vector B = (b1,…,bn) (if it exists) such that XBT = c.

Knapsack problem with superincreasing vector – easy

Problem Given a superincreasing integer-vector X = (x1,…,xn) (i.e. xi   j 1 x j , i  1
i 1

and an integer c,
determine a binary vector B = (b1,…,bn) (if it exists) such that XBT = c.

Algorithm - to solve knapsack problems with superincreasing vectors:

for i  n downto 2 do
if c  2xi then terminate {no solution}
else if c > xi then bi  1; c  c – xi ;
else bi = 0;
if c = x1 then b1  1
else if c = 0 then b1  0;
else terminate {no solution}
Example X = (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512) c = 999
X = (1,3,5,10,20,41,94,199) c = 242
Public-key cryptography 13
IV054 KNAPSACK ENCODING - BASIC IDEAS

Let a (knapsack) vector

A = (a1,…,an)
be given.
Encoding of a (binary) message B = (b1, b2,…,bn) by A is done by the
vector/vector multiplication:
ABT = c
and results in the cryptotext c
Decoding of c requires to solve the knapsack problem for the instant given by
the knapsack vector A and the cryptotext c.
The problem is that decoding seems to be infeasible.
Example
If A = (74, 82,94, 83, 39, 99, 56, 49, 73, 99) and B = (1100110101) then
ABT =

Public-key cryptography 14
IV054 Another view of the knapsack problem

Each knapsack vector A = (a1,…,an)

defines an integer valued
knapsack-function 
f A : x | 0  x  2n  N 
specified by
f A x   a i
i th bit in the binary
representation of x is 1

Example A0 = (43,129,215,473,903,302,561,1165,697,1523)
fA0(364) = fA0 (0101101100) = 129 + 473 + 903 + 561 + 1165 = 3231

Unambiguity of knapsack systems

For unambiguity of the decryption of the knapsack cryptosystems with knapsack
f A x1   f A x2  if x1  x2 .
vector A, it is important that

Example: If A = (17,103,50,81,33), then 131=17+33+81=50+81

Snd therefore for cryptotexts:
(131,33,100,234,33)
SAUNA FAUNA
two plaintexts are obtained
Public-key cryptography 15
IV054 Design of knapsack cryptosystems
1. Choose a superincreasing vector X = (x1,…,xn).
2. Choose m, u such that m > 2xn, gcd(m, u) = 1.
3. Compute u -1 mod m, X '= (x1’,…,xn'), xi’= ux i mod m.
diffusion
confusion
Cryptosystem: X' - public key
X, u, m - trapdoor information
Encryption: of a binary vector w of length n: c = X' w
Decryption: compute c‘ = u -1c mod m
and solve the knapsack problem with X and c'.
Lemma Let X, m, u, X', c, c' be as defined above. Then the knapsack problem
instances (X, c') and (X', c) have at most one solution, and if one of them has a
solution, then the second one has the same solution.
Proof Let X'w = c. Then
c‘  u -1c  u -1X'w  u -1uXw  Xw (mod m).
Since X is superincreasing and m > 2xn we have
(X w) mod m = X w
and therefore c‘ = Xw.
Public-key cryptography 16
IV054 Design of knapsack cryptosystems

Example X = (1,2,4,9,18,35,75,151,302,606)
m = 1250, u = 41
X‘ = (41,82,164,369,738,185,575,1191,1132,1096)
In order to encrypt an English plaintext, we first encode its letters by 5-bit numbers
_ - 00000, A - 00001, B - 00010,… and then divide the resulting binary strings into
blocks of length 10.
Plaintext: Encoding of AFRICA results in vectors
w1 = (0000100110) w2 = (1001001001) w3 = (0001100001)
Encryption: c1’ = X'w1 = 3061 c2’ = X'w2 = 2081 c3’ = X‘w3 = 2203
Cryptotext: (3061,2081,2203)
Decryption of cryptotexts: (2163, 2116, 1870, 3599)

By multiplying with u –1 = 61 (mod 1250) we get new cryptotexts (several new c’)
(693, 326, 320, 789)
and in the binary form solutions B of equations XBT=c’ have the form
(1101001001, 0110100010, 0000100010, 1011100101)
that is the resulting plaintext is:
ZIMBABWE
Public-key cryptography 17
IV054 Story of the Knapsack

Invented: 1978 - Ralp C. Merkle, Martin Hellman

Patented: in 10 countries
Broken: 1982: Adi Shamir
New idea: iterated knapsack cryptosystem using hyper-reachable vectors.
Definition A knapsack vector X '= (x1',…,xn') is obtained from a knapsack vector
X=(x1,…,xn) by strong modular multiplication if
X’i = ux i mod m, i = 1,…,n,

where n
m2 x
i 1 i

and gcd(u, m) = 1. A knapsack vector X' is called hyper-reachable, if there is a

sequence of knapsack vectors X = x0, x1,…,xk = X ‘,
where x0 is a super-increasing vector and for i = 1,…,k} and xi is obtained from xi-1
by a strong modular multiplication.
Iterated knapsack cryptosystem was broken in 1985 - E. Brickell
New ideas: dense knapsack cryptosystems. Density of a knapsack vector:
X=(x1,…,xn) is defined by d x   n
log max xi | 1  i  n
Remark. Density of super-increasing vectors is  nn1
Public-key cryptography 18
IV054 Breaking knapsack

Basic ideas of Shamir's polynomial time algorithm (in the length of the knapsack
vector) to break knapsack cryptosystems.
Assumption: there is a d > 1 such that modulus m has [dn] bits and elements a i,
1in, of a superincreasing vector, have [dn] – 1 – n + i bits.

n
(This implies that A is a superincreasing vector and m  a)
i 1 i .
(Original suggestion: d = 2,n = 100.)
Key observation: Given a knapsack vector B, which was obtained from a super-
increasing vector A through a strong modular multiplication using m and u, it is not
important for successful cryptoanalysis to find original A, m, u. It is enough to find a
pair (m‘ ,u') such that (1) the vector A' obtained is superincreasing
(2) m'  ai , t  u 1 mod m'  m, gcd m' , t   1

Such a pair is called a trapdoor pair.
m
To find a trapdoor pair one can proceed as follows: bix
One consider functions b ix mod m,1  i  n
Minimums are in points (discontinuation points)
jm
, jN
bi m/bi m x
sawtooth curves
Public-key cryptography 19
IV054 Breaking knapsack

We need to find out t and m such that:

a i = b i t mod m
and (a1,…,an) is a superincreasing vector.
Since a1 has to be very small comparing to m, t has to be close to some of the
minima of the b1-graph!
Similarly t has to be close to some minimum of the b2-graph.
This implies that two minima of the b1 and b2-graphs must be close to one another.
Similarly we can consider more bi-graphs.
The fact that the trapdoor pair value of t is close to a minimum on each bi-graph
implies that all these minima are close to one another.
Thus, instead of trying to find t itself, we try to find out “accumulation points'' of the
minima of bi-graphs.
This amounts to constructing a small interval containing a minimum of each bi-
graph, and from this to find a trapdoor value of t.
Experiments show that it suffices to analyze only four bi-graphs to get a desirable
small interval containing t.
The task is now to express the above ideas in terms of inequalities.
Public-key cryptography 20
IV054 Breaking knapsack

The first problem is that also m is unknown. This is easy to deal with.
We reduce the size of figures for bi-graphs so m becomes 1. This does not change
which of the minima are close to another.

The algorithm for finding a trapdoor pair consists of two parts:

1. Candidates are found for an integer p such that the p-th minimum of the b1-
curve is an accumulation point we are looking for.
2. Candidates are tests one by one. One of the candidates has to succeed.

One problem is that the first stage may produce too many candidates.

To deal with this problem an integer r is fixed in advance and if the first stage
produces more than r candidates the algorithm terminates and reports failure.

Public-key cryptography 21
IV054 KNAPSACK CRYPTOSYSTEM - COMMENTS

The term “knapsack'' in the name of the cryptosystem is quite misleading.

By the Knapsack problem it is mostly understood the following problem:

Given n items with weights w1, w2,…, wn and values v1, v2,…, vn and a knapsack
limit c, the task is to find a bit vector (b1, b2,…, bn) such that i 1 bi wi  c
n

and i 1 bi vi is as large as possible.

n

The term subset problem is usually used for the problem used in our construction
of the knapsack cryptosystem. It is well-known that the decision version of this
problem is NP-complete.

Sometimes, for our main version of the knapsack problem the term Merkle-
Hellmman (Knapsack) Cryptosystem is used.

Public-key cryptography 22
IV054 McEliece Cryptosystem

McEliece cryptosystem is based on a similar design principle as the

Knapsack cryptosystem. McEliece cryptosystem is formed by
transforming an easy to break cryptosystem into a cryptosystem that is
hard to break because it seems to be based on a problem that is, in
general, NP-hard.

The underlying fact is that the decision version of the decryption

problem for linear codes is in general NP-complete. However, for
special types of linear codes polynomial-time decryption algorithms
exist. One such a class of linear codes, the so-called Goppa codes,
are used to design McEliece cryptosystem.

Goppa codes are [2m, n - mt, 2t + 1]-codes, where n = 2m.

(McEliece suggested to use m = 10, t = 50.)

Public-key cryptography 23
IV054 McEliece Cryptosystem - DESIGN

Goppa codes are [2m, n - mt, 2t + 1]-codes, where n = 2m.

Design of McEliece cryptosystems. Let

• G be a generating matrix for an [n, k, d] Goppa code C;
• S be a k × k binary matrix invertible over Z2;
• P be an n × n permutation matrix;
• G‘ = SGP.

Let P = (Z2)k, C = (Z2)n, K = (G, S, P, G‘).

G' is made public, G, S, P are kept secret.

Encryption: eK(w, e) = wG‘ + e, where e is a binary vector of length n and weight t.

Decryption of a cryptotext c = wG’+e  (Z2)n.

1. Compute c1 = cP –1 =wSGPP –1 + eP –1 = wSG+eP-1
2. Decode c1 to get w1 = wS,
3. Compute w = w1S -1

Public-key cryptography 24
IV054 COMMENTS on McELIECE CRYPTOSYSTEM
1. Each irreducible polynomial over Z2m of degree t generates a Goppa code with
distance at least 2t + 1.
2. In the design of McEliece cryptosystem the goal of matrices S and C is to modify
a generator matrix G for an easy-to-decode Goppa code to get a matrix that looks
as a general random matrix for a linear code for which decoding problem is NP-
complete.
3. An important novel and unique trick is an introduction, in the encoding process,
of a random vector e that represents an introduction of up to t errors - such a
number of errors that are correctable using the given Goppa code and this is the
basic trick of the decoding process.
4. Since P is a permutation matrix eP -1 has the same weight as e.
5. As already mentioned, McEliece suggested to use a Goppa code with m=10 and
t=50. This provides a [1024, 524, 101]-code. Each plaintext is then a 524-bit string,
each cryptotext is a 1024-bit string. The public key is an 524 × 1024 matrix.
6. Observe that the number of potential matrices S and P is so large that
probability of guessing these matrices is smaller that probability of guessing correct
plaintext!!!
7. It can be shown that it is not safe to encrypt twice the same plaintext with the
same public key (and different error vectors).
Public-key cryptography 25
IV054 FINAL COMMENTS

1. Public-key cryptosystems can never provide unconditional security. This is

because an eavesdropper, on observing a cryptotext c can encrypt each posible
plaintext by the encryption algorithm eA until he finds an c such that eA(w) = c.

2. One-way functions exists if and only if P = UP, where UP is the class of

languages accepted by unambiguous polynomial time bounded
nondeterministic Turing machine.
3. There are actually two types of keys in practical use: A session key is used for
sending a particular message (or few of them). A master key is usually used to
generate several session keys.
4. Session keys are usually generated when actually required and discarded after
their use. Session keys are usually keys of a secret-key cryptosystem.
5. Master keys are usually used for longer time and need therefore be carefully
stored.Master keys are usually keys of a public-key cryptosystem.

Public-key cryptography 26
IV054 SATELLITE VERSION of ONE-TIME PAD

Suppose a satellite produces and broadcasts several random sequences of

bits at a rate fast enough that no computer can store more than a small
fraction of the output.

If Alice wants to send a message to Bob they first agree, using a public key
cryptography, on a method of sampling bits from the satellite outputs.

Alice and Bob use this method to generate a random key and they use it with
ONE-TIME PAD for encryption.

By the time Eve decrypted their public key communications, random streams
produced by the satellite and used by Alice and Bob to get the secret key
have disappeared, and therefore there is no way for Eve to make decryption.

The point is that satellites produce so large amount of date that Eve cannot
store all of them

Public-key cryptography 27
IV054 Digital signatures

Digital signatures are one of the most important inventions of modern cryptography.
The problem is how can a user sign a message such that everybody (or the
intended addressee only) can verify the digital signature and the signature is good
enough also for legal purposes.

Assume that a public-key cryptosystem is used by users.

Signing a message w by a user A so that any user can verify the signature;
dA(w)
Signing a message w by a user A so that only user B can verify the signature;
eB(dA(w))
Sending a message w and a signed message digest of w obtained by using a hash
function standard h:
(w, dA(h(w)))
Example Alice succeeds after 20 years to factor the integer. bob used, as modulus,
to sign documents, using RSA, 20 years ago. Even if the key is already expired,
she can write Bob's will, leaving fortune to Alice, and date it 20 years ago.
Moral: It may pay of to factor a single integers using many years of many computer
power.
Public-key cryptography 28
IV054 Digital signatures

If only signature (but not the encryption of the message) are of importance, then it
suffices that Alice sends to Bob
(w, dA(w))
Caution: Signing a message w by A for B by
eB(dA(w))
is O.K., bat the symmetric solution with encoding was
c = dA(eB(w))
is not good.
An active enemy, the tamperer, can intercept the message, then compute
dT(eB(c)) = dT(eA(w))
and send it to Alice, pretending it is from him (without being able to decrypt the
message).
Any public-key cryptosystem in which the plaintext and cryptotext are the same can
be used for digital signature.
Digital signatures
The main difference from a handwritten signature is that digital signature of a
message is intimately connected with the message whereas the handwritten
signature is adjoined to the message and always look the same.
Public-key cryptography 29