Cryptographic Applications of Analytic Number Theory : Complexity Lower Bounds and Pseudorandomness

The book introduces new techniques that imply rigorous lower bounds on the com­ plexity of some number-theoretic and cryptographic problems. It also establishes certain attractive pseudorandom properties of various cryptographic primitives. These methods and techniques are based on bounds of character sums and num­ bers of solutions of some polynomial equations over finite fields and residue rings. Other number theoretic techniques such as sieve methods and lattice reduction algorithms are used as well. The book also contains a number of open problems and proposals for further research. The emphasis is on obtaining unconditional rigorously proved statements. The bright side of this approach is that the results do not depend on any assumptions or conjectures. On the downside, the results are much weaker than those which are widely believed to be true. We obtain several lower bounds, exponential in terms of logp, on the degrees and orders of o polynomials; o algebraic functions; o Boolean functions; o linear recurrence sequences; coinciding with values of the discrete logarithm modulo a prime p at sufficiently many points (the number of points can be as small as pI/2+O:). These functions are considered over the residue ring modulo p and over the residue ring modulo an arbitrary divisor d of p - 1. The case of d = 2 is of special interest since it corresponds to the representation of the rightmost bit of the discrete logarithm and defines whether the argument is a quadratic residue.

The book introduces new ways of using analytic number theory in cryptography and related areas, such as complexity theory and pseudorandom number generation.

Key topics and features:

- various lower bounds on the complexity of some number theoretic and cryptographic problems, associated with classical schemes such as RSA, Diffie-Hellman, DSA as well as with relatively new schemes like XTR and NTRU

- a series of very recent results about certain important characteristics (period, distribution, linear complexity) of several commonly used pseudorandom number generators, such as the RSA generator, Blum-Blum-Shub generator, Naor-Reingold generator, inversive generator, and others

- one of the principal tools is bounds of exponential sums, which are combined with other number theoretic methods such as lattice reduction and sieving

- a number of open problems of different level of difficulty and proposals for further research

- an extensive and up-to-date bibliography

Cryptographers and number theorists will find this book useful. The former can learn about new number theoretic techniques which have proved to be invaluable cryptographic tools, the latter about new challenging areas of applications of their skills.