SNS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Kurumbapalayam(Po), Coimbatore – 641 107

An Autonomous Institution
Accredited by NAAC-UGC with ‘A’ Grade
Approved by AICTE, Recognized by UGC & Affiliated to Anna University, Chennai

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Course Code and Name : CS8792 – CRYPTOGRAPHY AND NETWORK SECURITY
IV YEAR / VII SEMESTER

Unit 3: Public Key Cryptography

Topic 1: Diffie Hellman key exchange
 Information Exchange Example

Suppose Mr. Jones and Ms. Clara need to exchange their official
information which is more sensitive between each other for an
emergency purpose.

They do not know each other.

They are not in the close proximity.

How can they exchange securely?

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 2/11
/ SNSCE
 Actual Problem with the network

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 3/11
/ SNSCE
 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange
• A public-key distribution scheme.
• Securely Exchange Keys- Establish
a common known only to
participants
• Security relies on the difficulty of
computing discrete logarithms Whitfield Martin
(similar to factoring) – hard Diffie Hellman

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 4/11
/ SNSCE
 Diffie Hellman - Analogy
Public Key

Private Keys

Common Shared Secret Key

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 5/11
/ SNSCE
 Come let’s play with colours.
• Let me have some volunteers 3 to 4
members
• One each can act as Sender, receiver and
attacker
• Let’s play the Diffie Hellman Key
exchange analogy in reality ….
• I will give you a common color for sender
and Receiver and let each one can pick
one color from pool of colors.
• Let the attacker/audience find the colors
exactly.

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 6/11
/ SNSCE
 Conclusion of Activity

Difficult to find it !
• Paint is easy to mix
• Paint is hard to unmix

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 7/11
/ SNSCE
 Algorithm

• Global parameters:
• large prime integer or
polynomial q Shared session key for users A & B is K:
• α a primitive root mod q
• User A : •K=y
xB
mod q
A
• Choose a secret Key xA < q
xA
• Compute public key yA = α
(which B can compute)
mod q
• User B : xA
• Choose a secret Key xB < q •K=y B mod q
xB
• Compute public key yB = α
mod q (which A can compute)

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 8/11
/ SNSCE
 Applications

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 9/11
/ SNSCE
 Assessment

Users Alice and Bob use the Diffie-Hellman key exchange technique with a
common prime q=83 and primitive root α=5.
• If Alice has a private key Xa=6,what is Alice’s public keyYA?
• If Bob has a private key Xb=10, what is Bob’s public key YB?
• What is the shared secret key?

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 10/11
/ SNSCE
 References

• William Stallings, Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice, PHI
3rd Edition, 2006.
• Behrouz A. Foruzan, Cryptography and Network Security, Tata McGraw Hill 2007.

04/11/2023 Diffie Hellman Key Exchange / CS8792 - Cryptography and Network Security / A.Kowshika / IT 11/11
/ SNSCE