Modular exponentiation

Common card · No. 359394

Modular exponentiation is exponentiation performed over a modulus. It is useful in computer science, especially in the field of public-key cryptography, where it is used in both Diffie–Hellman key exchange and RSA public/private keys. Modular exponentiation is the remainder c when an integer b (the base) is raised to the power e (the exponent), and divided by a positive integer m (the modulus); that is, c = be mod m. From the definition of division, it follows that 0 ≤ c < m. For example, given b = 5, e = 3 and m = 13, dividing 53 = 125 by 13 leaves a remainder of c = 8. When b and m are relatively prime, one can also allow the exponent e to be negative by finding the multiplicative inverse d of b modulo m (for instance by using extended Euclidean algorithm). More precisely: c = be mod m = d−e mod m, where e < 0 and b ⋅ d ≡ 1 (mod m). Modular exponentiation is efficient to compute, even for very large integers. On the other hand, computing the modular discrete logarithm – that is, finding...

Read on Wikipedia