Patent · US Expired

Exponentiation cryptographic apparatus and method

US4424414A · kind A · utility

364Cited by
1References
2Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 1, 1978
Grant dateJan 3, 1984
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 1, 1998

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L9/3066
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A cryptographic system transmits a computationally secure cryptogram that is generated from a secret transformation of the message sent by the authorized transmitter; the cryptogram is again transformed by the authorized receiver using a secret reciprocal transformation to reproduce the message sent. The secret transformations use secret cipher keys that are known only by the authorized transmitter and receiver. The transformations are performed with nonsecret operations, exponentiation, that are easily performed but extremely difficult to invert. It is computationally infeasible for an eavesdropper either to solve known plaintext-ciphertext pairs for the secret cipher keys, or to invert the nonsecret operations that are used to generate the cryptogram.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.