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- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!pacbell.com!att!ucbvax!WATSON.IBM.COM!jbs
- From: jbs@WATSON.IBM.COM
- Newsgroups: sci.crypt
- Subject: RSA-129 contest
- Message-ID: <9208270030.AA24842@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
- Date: 26 Aug 92 23:48:22 GMT
- Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
- Lines: 30
-
-
- Robert Silverman posted:
- :The problem I have is that one must add the time you spent looking for
- :good polynomials to the total run time. However, looking for good
- :polynomials is non-deterministic. We do not know of a deterministic
- :method which, if you spend time t, you will succeed in reducing the
- :coefficients by size F(t). Thus, you cannot predict AT all how long
- :a factorization will take. On the other hand, using the base M method,
- :while sub-optimal, is deterministic.
- :
- :If you estimate sieve time is T, and you spend (say) .2T looking
- :for a better polynomial, there is no guarantee of finding one, and
- :you will have increased total time by 20% for no good reason. Nor do
- :you have assurances that spending the extra time will reduce the sieve time
- :by more than the time you spent searching.
-
- I don't understand what you are saying here. Suppose we use a
- brute force technique (trying a bunch of different m values) to search
- for good polynomials. We can certainly estimate what measure we will
- obtain as a function of the number of m values that we try. We can then
- predict how long the total factorization will take as a function of the
- number of trials. Minimizing this function will tell us how many m
- values we should test in order to minimize the expected running time
- (this assumes we fix this number in advance, actually we should quit
- early if we are lucky, try more if we are unlucky, this is a detail).
- It is true this does not give a worst case running time, however is it
- not the case that we do not have worst case guaranteed bounds for any
- competitive factoring method? Do you not choose the number of primes
- in your factor base by similar reasoning?
- James B. Shearer
-