Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2020/1535

Designer Primes

Anna M. Johnston

Abstract: Prime integers are the backbone of most public key cryptosystems. Attacks often go after the primes themselves, as in the case of all factoring and index calculus algorithms. Primes are time sensitive cryptographic material and should be periodically changed. Unfortunately many systems use fixed primes for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty of generating trusted, random, cryptographically secure primes. This is particularly concerning in the case of discrete log based cryptosystems. This paper describes a variant of provable prime generation, intended for discrete logarithm based cryptography, based off Pocklington's theorem with improved efficiency, flexibility and security.

Category / Keywords: secret-key cryptography / prime generation, finite field cryptosystems

Date: received 8 Dec 2020

Contact author: amj at juniper net

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20201213:163634 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2020/1535