Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

By Will Garner
Some Preliminaries:
Def: An element g is called a generator of a
group G if every element in G can be
expressed as the product of finitely many
powers of g.
Some Preliminaries:
Def: If p 1 is an integer, then the numbers
coprime to p, taken modulo p, form a group
with multiplication as its operation. It is written
as (Z/pZ)

or Z
p
*
.
This group is cyclic and any generator, g, of
the group is called a primitive root mod p.
Some Preliminaries:
Def: The number of invertible elements
modulo n is denoted by f(n).
The function f is called Eulers Totient
function or Eulers f-function.
In particular, f(p) = p 1.
Some Preliminaries:
Def: Suppose g is a primitive root mod p.
If g
x
y (mod p), then the discrete
logarithm or index of y (to the base g) is
ind
g
(y) = x mod (f(p)).
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
Developed in 1976 and published in New
Directions in Cryptography.
The protocol allows two users to exchange a
secret key over an insecure medium without
any prior secrets.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
The Setup:
Suppose we have two people wishing to
communicate: Alice and Bob.
They do not want Eve (eavesdropper) to know
their message.
Alice and Bob agree upon and make public two
numbers g and p, where p is a prime and g is a
primitive root mod p.
Note: Anyone has access to these numbers.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
The Exchange:
1. Alice chooses a random number a and
computes u g
a
(mod p), and sends u to Bob.
2. Bob chooses a random number b and
computes v g
b
(mod p), and sends v to Alice.
3. Bob computes the key k u
b
(g
a
)
b
(mod p).
4. Alice computes the key k v
a
(g
b
)
a
(mod p).
Now, both Alice and Bob have the same key,
namely k = g
ab
(mod p).
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
If Eve wants to compute k, then she would
need either a or b.
Otherwise, Eve would need to solve a
Discrete Logarithm Problem.
There is no known algorithm to accomplish this in
a reasonable amount of time.
Discrete Logarithm Problem
The Problem: Solve for x if y g
x
(mod p),
given you know y, g and p.
Solution 1: Brute Force.
It would take p steps to calculate the solution.
Each trial requires a fair amount of work.
Not efficient.
Discrete Logarithm Problem
The Problem: Solve for x if y g
x
(mod p),
given you know y, g and p.
Solution 2: Shanks Algorithm.
This algorithm is more efficient, but it still
requires steps.
This is not practical for large p.
log( ) p p
Discrete Logarithm Problem
For example, if p =
170141183460469231731687303715884105727,
then it would take roughly 1.14824 10
21
steps to solve. (Each step requires many
calculations.)
Even using Googles computers which are
estimated to perform 300 trillion calculations
per second, it would take roughly 5 years to
solve.
Discrete Logarithm Problem
And the above prime was found in the 1800s.
Today, much larger primes exist, that would
take even longer to solve using brute force.
If the prime p had 300 digits and a and b had
more than 100 digits, it would take longer
than the life of the universe to crack with the
existing methods.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
Example: Suppose Alice and Bob agree to
use p = 47 and g = 5.
Alice chooses a number between 0 and 46,
say a = 18.
Bob chooses a number between 0 and 46,
say b = 22.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
Alice publishes g
a
(mod p), i.e.
u = 5
18
(mod 47) = 2.
Bob publishes g
b
(mod p), i.e.
v = 5
22
(mod 47) = 28.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
If Alice wants to know the secret key k, she
takes Bobs public number, v = 28, and raises
it to her private number, a = 18 (taking the
result mod 47).
This gives her: 28
18
(mod 47) = 24.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
If Bob wants to know the secret key, he takes
Alices public number, u = 2, and raises it to
his private number, b = 22 (taking the result
mod 47).
This gives him: 2
22
(mod 47) = 24.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
Thus, Alice and Bob have agreed upon a
secret key, k = 24.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
Susceptibility: If Eve can intercept u and v, it
is possible for her to substitute her own u
and v.
If she can intercept all communication
between Alice and Bob, then she can
substitute her own messages.
In 1992, the exchange was modified to
prevent the man-in-the-middle attack
described above.
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
User Authentication: Alice encrypts the
message, m, with her private key a, call it m
a
.
Alice encrypts m
a
with Bobs public key, v,
and sends the message to Bob.
Bob recovers m
a
using his private key b and
recovers m by using Alices public key u.
Thus, Bob is sure that only Alice could have
sent the message.