The RSA algorithm is named after Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman, who invented the system in 1977. The RSA cryptosystem is the most widely-used public key cryptography algorithm in the world. It can be used to encrypt a message without requiring the exchange of a secret key. RSA exploits the fact that while multiplying large integers is trivial, determining the factors of large integers is much more difficult. The original paper introducing the RSA cryptosystem is quite readable, and can be downloaded here.

In this post, we’ll walk through each step of the RSA algorithm (key generation, key distribution, encryption and decryption) with an illustrative example using small primes.

### RSA Algorithm

1. Generate two prime numbers $$p, q$$ then compute their product $$n$$.

2. Compute Euler’s totient: $$\phi = (p - 1)(q - 1)$$.

3. Select a number $$e$$ that is relatively coprime with $$(p -1)$$ and $$(q - 1)$$.

4. Compute $$d$$ such that $$ed \equiv 1 (mod \phi)$$.

Once we have $$n$$, $$d$$ and $$e$$, we specify our public key as $$(n, e)$$ and private key as $$(n, d)$$.

For a plain text message $$m$$, we can generate the corresponding ciphertext $$c$$ by computing:

$$c = m^{e} \bmod n$$

Similarly, we can convert the ciphertext $$c$$ back to plaintext $$m$$ using:

$$m = c^{d} \bmod n$$

### Demonstration

In order to use the RSA cryptosystem, it is necessary to use an encoding to represent letters as numbers. A well know mapping of english letters to numeric values is the ASCII character encoding, reproduced below:

For example, using the ASCII encoding, HELP! would be encoded as 72 - 69 - 76 - 80 - 33.

As specified above, we start by generating two primes then compute their product. In practice, the modulus can be 1024-bits or greater. A 1024-bit
modulus corresponds to a number with over 300 decimal digits[1].

\begin{align} p&=19\\ q&=29\\ n&=pq = 551 \end{align}

Then we compute Euler’s totient:

$$\phi = (p -1)(q-1) = 18 \times 28 = 504$$

Next we need to find a number $$e$$, where $$1 < e < \phi$$ that is relatively coprime with $$(p - 1)$$ and $$(q - 1)$$. In other words, find $$e$$ such that the greatest common divisor of $$\phi$$ and $$e$$ is 1. For this example, we set $$e=17$$.

Finally, we need to find $$d$$ such that $$ed \equiv 1 (mod \phi)$$. This can be accomplished using the following function implemented in Python:

import itertools

def get_d(e, phi):
"""
Compute d such that e * d = 1 % phi.
"""
for i in itertools.count(start=int(phi / e)):
v = (e * i) % phi
if v==1: break
return(i)


Running get_d yields $$89$$.

To summarize:

\begin{align} p&=19\\ q&=29\\ n&=551\\ \phi&=504\\ e&=17\\ d&=89 \end{align}

Given these values, our public key is $$(551, 17)$$ and our private key is $$(551, 89)$$.

Given our numerically-encoded plaintext HELP! as 72 - 69 - 76 - 80 - 33, we can generate the ciphertext. Recall that in order to convert plaintext to ciphertext, we use $$c = m^{e} \bmod n$$. Note that Python’s pow function takes an optional 3rd parameter representing the modulus. For example, calling pow(a, b, c) calculates $$a^{b}\bmod c$$:

>>> p, q, n, phi, e, d = 19, 29 551, 504, 17, 89
>>> m = [72, 69, 76, 80, 33]
>>> c = [[pow(i, e, n) for i in m]
>>> print(c)
[185, 293, 171, 5, 528]


Notice that when we print c, the numbers are completely different than the plaintext encoding (we should hope!).

This message can only be decoded by the entity in possession of the private key. Let’s imagine that we received a message from a counter party who generated the ciphertext using the public key. We need to decrypt the message using our private key. To do so, we calculate $$m = c^{d} \bmod n$$. In Python, we can obtain the ASCII character associated with an integer by calling the chr function. Picking up where we left off in the previous example, we first convert the ciphertext to plaintext, then the plaintext array of integers to a string:

>>> m_ = [pow(i, d, n) for i in c]
>>> print(m_)
[72, 69, 76, 80, 33]
>>> "".join(chr(i) for i in m_)
HELP!


### Breaking RSA with Brute-Force

Recently I came across a question posted to crypto.statsexchange inquiring about the computing resources that would be required to brute-force enumerate every possible RSA {1024, 2048,4096}-bit key-pair. Here were two responses I found particularly helpful.

The first response:

Even if you had infinite computing power you would not have the space to store all these public/private key pairs (I’ll spare you the semimathematical posts comparing the space required to the number of protons in the universe). Many people have trouble perceiving just how big a number $$2^{2048}$$ is, it’s a common error. A much more practical approach instead is to harvest as many real-life public keys as possible, and trying to find common factors between them. It actually works because of poor key generation practices.

The second response:

It’s not possible. The number of primes smaller than x is approximately $$\frac{x}{ln(x)}$$. Therefore the number of 512 bit primes (the length you need for 1024 bit modulus) is approximately:

$$\frac{2^{513}}{\ln 2^{513}}-\frac{2^{512}}{\ln 2^{512}} \approx 2.76×10^{151}$$

The number of RSA moduli (i.e. pair of two distinct primes) is therefore:

$$\frac{(2.76×10^{151})^2}{2}-2.76×10^{151}=1.88×10^{302}$$

Now consider that the observable universe contains about $$10^{80}$$ atoms. Assume that you could use each of those atoms as a CPU, and each of those CPUs could enumerate one modulus per millisecond. To enumerate all 1024 bit RSA moduli you would need:

$$\begin{eqnarray*} 1.88×10^{302}ms / 10^{80}&=&1.88×10^{222}ms\\ &=&1.88×10^{219}s\\ &=&5.22×10^{215}h\\ &=&5.95×10^{211} \text{years} \end{eqnarray*}$$

Just as a comparison: the universe is about $$13.75×10^{9}$$ years old.

It’s not a question of resources, it’s simply not possible.

This has been merely a brief introduction to the RSA cryptosystem. For more information, please refer to the original paper referenced above, or this site for a detailed description of the algorithm and its various implementations as well as practical considerations. Until next time, happy coding!

### Footnotes:

1. https://www.di-mgt.com.au/rsa_alg.html