On the computation of discrete logarithms in finite prime fields

摘要

In this thesis we write about practical experience when solving congruences of the form a^x = b mod p, a,b,p,x Element Z, p prime. This is referred to as the discrete logarithm problem in (Z/pZ)*. Many cryptographic protocols such as signature schemes, message encryption, key exchange and identification depend on the difficulty of this problem. We are concerned with the practicability of different index calculus variants, which are the asymtotically fastest known algorithms at present to solve this problem. We present computations for p having up to 85 decimal digits. We include a partial solution to McCurleyu27s challenge with a 129-digit p, which has a special form.