Carmichael Numbers and Primality Tests
By
Sanjeev Rao
Outline
Introduction Carmichael numbers
What is Carmichael number Detecting a Carmichael number Statistics and importance Sieve of Eratosthenes Chinese Primality Test
Ancient Primality testing methods
Introduction
Cryptographic algorithms uses big prime numbers Checking a big number is prime is not so easy
Solution
Use probabilistic primality tests Fermat Little Theorem:
If n is prime then ap-1 1 (mod p) for any integer a and pa.
Carmichael Numbers
Pseudoprime for every possible base b: that is, for every b coprime to n Passes Fermats little theorem test
Statistics
16 #s up to 100,000 43 #s up to 106 105,212 up to 1015 and 246,683 up to 1016 Example 561, 1105, 1729, 2465 .
Detecting Carmichael numbers
If n is a product of distinct prime numbers, n = p1, p2, p3 . Ps , pi pj and pi 1 | n-1 for every prime factor pi, i = 1.. s, then n is a Carmichael number. Example: n = 561 = 3 x 11 x 17 2 | 560 , 10 | 560, 16 | 560
Importance
Encryption algorithms like RSA, ElGamal etc must have large primes For example, If we pick a Carmichael number as a prime number p in RSA, we can factor p and hence q and k ( k = (p-1) x (q-1) )
Primality testing
Process of proving a number is prime Two of the oldest test methods
Sieve of Eratosthenes Chinese Primality Test
Sieve of Eratosthenes
Greek mathematician Found this method in 240 BC One of the most efficient way to find all of the small primes (say all those less than 10,000,000) Sieve all primes less than given n
Sieve of Eratosthenes
contd
Write down the numbers 1, 2, 3, ..., n. We will eliminate composites by marking them. Initially all numbers are unmarked Mark the number 1 as special (it is neither prime nor composite)
Sieve of Eratosthenes
contd
Set k=1. Until k exceeds or equals the square root of n do this: Find the first number in the list greater than k that has not been identified as composite. (The very first number is 2.) Call it m. Mark the numbers 2m, 3m, 4m, ... as composite. (Thus in the first run we mark all even numbers greater than 2. In the second run we mark all multiples of 3 greater than 3.) m is a prime number. Put it on your list Set k=m and repeat Put the remaining unmarked numbers in the sequence on your list of prime numbers
Example primes less than or equal to 30
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 The first number 2 is prime, cross out its multiples (color them red), so the red numbers are not prime. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Example
contd
Repeat this with the next number 3 and so on Finally we have
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
We are left with {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29} as primes less than 30
contd
speed O(n(log n)log log n) bit operations space O(n)
Disadvantages
Not efficient for big numbers Needs lot of space to store big numbers
Possible solution
Large n use a segmented sieve
http://www.ieeta.pt/~tos/software/prime_sieve.html
Gives the algorithm and the runtime in seconds on a 900MHz Athlon processor with 512Mbytes of memory running on GNU/Linux A1, A2, A3 three different segmented sieve algorithms
Performance
n 12 14 16 18 A1 13.31 25.79 97.39 208.13 A2 14.08 20.62 26.26 32.36 A3 2.63 4.05 5.58 9.61
Chinese Primality Test
Found in approximately 500 B.C Let n be an integer, n > 1. If 2n is congruent to 2 (mod n) or 2n-1 1 (mod n) , then n is either a prime or a base-2 pseudoprime. A number that passes the Chinese Primality Test has only a 0.002% chance of not being prime.
Contd
In 1640, Fermat rediscovered what the ancient Chinese had known nearly 2000 years before him. He also examined the problem using bases other than 2, improving on the accuracy of the Chinese test.
References
Definitions Sieve of Eratosthenes
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CarmichaelNumber.html
http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/page.php?sort=SieveOfEratosthenes http://ccins.camosun.bc.ca/~jbritton/jberatosthenes.htm http://www.math.pku.edu.cn/stu/eresource/wsxy/sxrjjc/wk/Encyclopedia/math/e/e232.htm
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/pscico/doc/nesl/manual/node10.html
Segmented Sieve
http://www.ieeta.pt/~tos/software/prime_sieve.html
References
contd
Chinese Primality testing http://www-math.mit.edu/phase2/UJM/vol1/DORSEY-F.PDF List of Carmichael Numbers http://www.kobepharma-u.ac.jp/~math/note/note02.txt
Questions
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