Discrete Logarithms: The Past and the Future

  • Authors:
  • Andrew Odlyzko

  • Affiliations:
  • AT&T Labs - Research

  • Venue:
  • Designs, Codes and Cryptography - Special issue on towards a quarter-century of public key cryptography
  • Year:
  • 2000

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Abstract

The first practicalpublic key cryptosystem to be published, the Diffie–Hellmankey exchange algorithm, was based on the assumption that discretelogarithms are hard to compute. This intractability hypothesisis also the foundation for the presumed security of a varietyof other public key schemes. While there have been substantialadvances in discrete log algorithms in the last two decades,in general the discrete log still appears to be hard, especiallyfor some groups, such as those from elliptic curves. Unfortunatelyno proofs of hardness are available in this area, so it is necessaryto rely on experience and intuition in judging what parametersto use for cryptosystems. This paper presents a brief surveyof the current state of the art in discrete logs.