Combinatorics in algebraic and logical cryptanalysis

Overview & Synopsis

In this thesis, we explore the use of combinatorial techniques, such as graph-based algorithms and constraint satisfaction, in cryptanalysis. Our main focus is on the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. First, we tackle this problem in the case of elliptic curves defined over prime-degree binary extension fields, using the index calculus attack. A crucial step of this attack is solving the point decomposition problem, which consists in finding zeros of Semaev’s summation polynomials and can be reduced to the problem of solving a multivariate Boolean polynomial system. To this end, we encode the point decomposition problem as a logical formula and define it as an instance of the SAT problem. Then, we propose an original XOR-reasoning SAT solver, named WDSat, dedicated to this specific problem. As Semaev’s polynomials are symmetric, we extend the WDSat solver by adding a novel symmetry breaking technique that, in contrast to other symmetry breaking techniques, is not applied to the modelization or the choice of a factor base, but to the solving process. Experimental running times show that our SAT-based solving approach is significantly faster than current algebraic methods based on Gröbner basis computation. In addition, our solver outperforms other state-of-the-art SAT solvers, for this specific problem. Finally, we study the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem in the general case. More specifically, we propose a new data structure for the Parallel Collision Search attack proposed by van Oorschot and Wiener, which has significant consequences on the memory and time complexity of this algorithm