Binary Exponentiation by Factoring¶
Consider a problem of computing $ax^y \pmod{2^d}$, given integers $a$, $x$, $y$ and $d \geq 3$, where $x$ is odd.
The algorithm below allows to solve this problem with $O(d)$ additions and binary operations and a single multiplication by $y$.
Due to the structure of the multiplicative group modulo $2^d$, any number $x$ such that $x \equiv 1 \pmod 4$ can be represented as
where $b \equiv 5 \pmod 8$. Without loss of generality we assume that $x \equiv 1 \pmod 4$, as we can reduce $x \equiv 3 \pmod 4$ to $x \equiv 1 \pmod 4$ by substituting $x \mapsto -x$ and $a \mapsto (-1)^{y} a$. In this notion, $ax^y$ is represented as
The core idea of the algorithm is to simplify the computation of $L(x)$ and $b^{y L(x)}$ using the fact that we're working modulo $2^d$. For reasons that will be apparent later on, we'll be working with $4L(x)$ rather than $L(x)$, but taken modulo $2^d$ instead of $2^{d-2}$.
In this article, we will cover the implementation for $32$-bit integers. Let
mbin_log_32(r, x)be a function that computes $r+4L(x) \pmod{2^d}$;mbin_exp_32(r, x)be a function that computes $r b^{\frac{x}{4}} \pmod{2^d}$;mbin_power_odd_32(a, x, y)be a function that computes $ax^y \pmod{2^d}$.
Then mbin_power_odd_32 is implemented as follows:
uint32_t mbin_power_odd_32(uint32_t rem, uint32_t base, uint32_t exp) {
if (base & 2) {
/* divider is considered negative */
base = -base;
/* check if result should be negative */
if (exp & 1) {
rem = -rem;
}
}
return (mbin_exp_32(rem, mbin_log_32(0, base) * exp));
}
Computing 4L(x) from x¶
Let $x$ be an odd number such that $x \equiv 1 \pmod 4$. It can be represented as
where $1 < a_1 < \dots < a_k < d$. Here $L(\cdot)$ is well-defined for each multiplier, as they're equal to $1$ modulo $4$. Hence,
So, if we precompute $t_k = 4L(2^n+1)$ for all $1 < k < d$, we will be able to compute $4L(x)$ for any number $x$.
For 32-bit integers, we can use the following table:
const uint32_t mbin_log_32_table[32] = {
0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0xd3cfd984, 0x9ee62e18,
0xe83d9070, 0xb59e81e0, 0xa17407c0, 0xce601f80,
0xf4807f00, 0xe701fe00, 0xbe07fc00, 0xfc1ff800,
0xf87ff000, 0xf1ffe000, 0xe7ffc000, 0xdfff8000,
0xffff0000, 0xfffe0000, 0xfffc0000, 0xfff80000,
0xfff00000, 0xffe00000, 0xffc00000, 0xff800000,
0xff000000, 0xfe000000, 0xfc000000, 0xf8000000,
0xf0000000, 0xe0000000, 0xc0000000, 0x80000000,
};
On practice, a slightly different approach is used than described above. Rather than finding the factorization for $x$, we will consequently multiply $x$ with $2^n+1$ until we turn it into $1$ modulo $2^d$. In this way, we will find the representation of $x^{-1}$, that is
To do this, we iterate over $n$ such that $1 < n < d$. If the current $x$ has $n$-th bit set, we multiply $x$ with $2^n+1$, which is conveniently done in C++ as x = x + (x << n). This won't change bits lower than $n$, but will turn the $n$-th bit to zero, because $x$ is odd.
With all this in mind, the function mbin_log_32(r, x) is implemented as follows:
uint32_t mbin_log_32(uint32_t r, uint32_t x) {
uint8_t n;
for (n = 2; n < 32; n++) {
if (x & (1 << n)) {
x = x + (x << n);
r -= mbin_log_32_table[n];
}
}
return r;
}
Note that $4L(x) = -4L(x^{-1})$, so instead of adding $4L(2^n+1)$, we subtract it from $r$, which initially equates to $0$.
Computing x from 4L(x)¶
Note that for $k \geq 1$ it holds that
from which (by repeated squaring) we can deduce that
Applying this result to $a=2^n+1$ and $b=d-k$ we deduce that the multiplicative order of $2^n+1$ is a divisor of $2^{d-n}$.
This, in turn, means that $L(2^n+1)$ must be divisible by $2^{n}$, as the order of $b$ is $2^{d-2}$ and the order of $b^y$ is $2^{d-2-v}$, where $2^v$ is the highest power of $2$ that divides $y$, so we need
thus $v$ must be greater or equal than $k-2$. This is a bit ugly and to mitigate this we said in the beginning that we multiply $L(x)$ by $4$. Now if we know $4L(x)$, we can uniquely decomposing it into a sum of $4L(2^n+1)$ by consequentially checking bits in $4L(x)$. If the $n$-th bit is set to $1$, we will multiply the result with $2^n+1$ and reduce the current $4L(x)$ by $4L(2^n+1)$.
Thus, mbin_exp_32 is implemented as follows:
uint32_t mbin_exp_32(uint32_t r, uint32_t x) {
uint8_t n;
for (n = 2; n < 32; n++) {
if (x & (1 << n)) {
r = r + (r << n);
x -= mbin_log_32_table[n];
}
}
return r;
}
Further optimizations¶
It is possible to halve the number of iterations if you note that $4L(2^{d-1}+1)=2^{d-1}$ and that for $2k \geq d$ it holds that
which allows to deduce that $4L(2^n+1)=2^n$ for $2n \geq d$. So, you could simplify the algorithm by only going up to $\frac{d}{2}$ and then use the fact above to compute the remaining part with bitwise operations:
uint32_t mbin_log_32(uint32_t r, uint32_t x) {
uint8_t n;
for (n = 2; n != 16; n++) {
if (x & (1 << n)) {
x = x + (x << n);
r -= mbin_log_32_table[n];
}
}
r -= (x & 0xFFFF0000);
return r;
}
uint32_t mbin_exp_32(uint32_t r, uint32_t x) {
uint8_t n;
for (n = 2; n != 16; n++) {
if (x & (1 << n)) {
r = r + (r << n);
x -= mbin_log_32_table[n];
}
}
r *= 1 - (x & 0xFFFF0000);
return r;
}
Computing logarithm table¶
To compute log-table, one could modify the Pohlig–Hellman algorithm for the case when modulo is a power of $2$.
Our main task here is to compute $x$ such that $g^x \equiv y \pmod{2^d}$, where $g=5$ and $y$ is a number of kind $2^n+1$.
Squaring both parts $k$ times we arrive to
Note that the order of $g$ is not greater than $2^{d}$ (in fact, than $2^{d-2}$, but we will stick to $2^d$ for convenience), hence using $k=d-1$ we will have either $g^1$ or $g^0$ on the left hand side which allows us to determine the smallest bit of $x$ by comparing $y^{2^k}$ to $g$. Now assume that $x=x_0 + 2^k x_1$, where $x_0$ is a known part and $x_1$ is not yet known. Then
Multiplying both parts with $g^{-x_0}$, we get
Now, squaring both sides $d-k-1$ times we can obtain the next bit of $x$, eventually recovering all its bits.