Discrete Mathematics 2002 Lecture 37, 22-October-2002

Introduction
• Last lecture – we looked at public key encryption
• In public key encryption there are 2 types of keys
– a private key & a public key
• The private key is kept by the receiver
• The public key is announced by the receiver to
anyone who wants it (e.g. the sender of the
message – or anyone else!)
• Thus there are no security issues associated with
the distribution of keys
• When A wants to send a message to B, A
encrypts the message using B’s public key
• B decrypts the message using their private key
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The RSA Algorithm

• The most common public key encryption
method in use today is the RSA algorithm
• In RSA, keys are generated as follows:
1. A key centre (which generates & distributes
keys) chooses 2 distinct large prime nos p & q,
and multiplies them: n = pq
2. Then p – 1 & q – 1 are multiplied:
m = (p – 1)(q – 1)
3. A number x is chosen so that x & m are coprime
4. Then the centre computes an integer y so that
xy = 1 mod m
5. The participant gets the nos x & n as their
public key, & y & n as their private key 2

Sending a Message with RSA

• Once a participant has their public & private
keys, they receive a message as follows:
1. The sender converts the message to bits, breaks
it into substrings of the same length, then each
substring (which is an integer a that must be
≤ n) is encrypted using C = ax mod n.
C is the ciphertext – note the formula uses the
receiver’s public key, which is freely available.
2. The receiver then deciphers C back to a
plaintext character P by P = C y mod n.
This formula requires knowledge of the private
key, which is known only to the receiver. 3

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Discrete Mathematics 2002 Lecture 37, 22-October-2002

Example of Sending a Message

with RSA
• Last lecture – we showed that a valid pair of
keys for RSA is x = 3 & n = 33 (public key),
and y = 7 & n = 33 (private key)
• Note that the numbers used in this example are
much smaller than they would be if we were
encrypting information in a practical situation
• Example: Use the above keys to encrypt the
message g (i.e. 7), & show the correct message
is recovered after decryption
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Why does the RSA Method Work?

• The theoretical basis that ensures the RSA
method always works comes from an area of
mathematics known as number theory (which is
the study of properties of integers)
• Note that the process we described for
generating keys has to be followed closely
• For example, we stated that it was necessary to
start with 2 distinct prime nos p & q, & multiply
them to obtain the number n that appears in both
the public and private keys: n = pq 5

RSA with non-Prime Starting Nos

• What happens if p & q are not both prime?
• Suppose we generate keys with p = 3 & q = 8
(note that q is not prime)
• Then x = 3 & n = 24 (public), and y = 5 & n = 24
(private) are suitable keys
• If the message is the number 3, it is recovered by
the receiver as the number 3 (as we’d expect)
• However, the message 2 is recovered as 8
• Similarly, the message 6 is recovered as 0
• So the RSA method doesn’t necessarily work
with non-prime values of p & q 6

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Discrete Mathematics 2002 Lecture 37, 22-October-2002

Message Security with RSA

• A message sent using RSA can be deciphered by
an intruder if they are able to determine (e.g.
guess) the number y in the private key
• In the earlier example, y was 7, and this would
be guessed easily with a trial-and-error approach
• In practice, though, very large nos are used for x
& y (at least tens of digits), so a trial-and-error
approach to finding y would take months or
years, even with the fastest available computers
• So an intruder is very unlikely to guess y
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Message Security with RSA (cont)

• The other way to break the cipher (other than by
stealing y) is to find the original prime nos p & q
on which the public & private keys were based
• Since n = pq, and the value of n is publically
available (in the public key), the cipher will be
broken if we can factor n into constituent primes
• While this may sound fairly easy, it is actually
very difficult to find the factors of large nos (and
it is suggested n has at least 200 decimal digits)
• To illustrate this difficulty, the RSA Security Co.
offers prizes of $10,000 to $200,000 (US) for
factoring certain nos, of length 174 to 617 digits8

Become Rich by Factoring Numbers

• For example, you can earn $10,000 by factoring
188198812920607963838697239461650439807
163563379417382700763356422988859715234
665485319060606504743045317388011303396
716199692321205734031879550656996221305
168759307650257059
• The company offers these prizes to “encourage
research into computational number theory and
the practical difficulty of factoring large integers”
• Given the magnitude of the prizes, it is clearly no
easy task to factor large nos, even with the latest
computers 9

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Discrete Mathematics 2002 Lecture 37, 22-October-2002

Public Key Encryption – Advantages

• The major advantage of public key encryption
over secret key encryption is the number of keys
• An individual can communicate securely with
any number of other people with just 2 keys
• So, for 1 million people to communicate
securely, just 2 million keys are needed
• This contrasts with secret key encryption, which
needed half-a-trillion keys (250,000 times more)
• As well, unlike secret key encryption, there isn’t
the need to find a secure way to distribute keys,
since only the public key needs to be distributed
– and this can be known to anyone 10

Public Key Encryption –

Disadvantages
• The disadvantage of the public key method is
the time taken to implement the algorithm (i.e.
to encrypt and decrypt messages)
• The method is time consuming because of the
very large numbers needed in the public and
private keys
• So public key encryption is not recommended
for large amounts of text
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Combined Secret & Public Key

Encryption
• It is possible to use an encryption method that
combines the advantage of the secret key
algorithm (efficiency of encrypting & decrypting
messages) with that of the public key approach
(easy distribution of keys)
• In this method, the public key is used to encrypt
the secret key; the secret key is used to encrypt
the actual message
• The procedure is described on the following slide
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Discrete Mathematics 2002 Lecture 37, 22-October-2002

Combined Approach to Encryption

1. The sender chooses a secret key, which is called
the one-session key (it is used only once)
2. The sender uses the receiver’s public key to
encrypt the secret key, & sends it to the receiver.
Note that this message (i.e. the secret key) is
short, so is suitable for public key encryption.
3. The receiver uses their private key to decrypt the
secret key
4. The sender uses the secret key to encrypt the
actual message, then sends it to the receiver who
uses the same secret key (which they’ve received
securely) to decrypt it 13

Diagram of Combined Approach

(Diagram from Foundations of Computer Science by

Behrouz A. Forouzan, Brooks/Cole, 2003, p. 311)
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