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November 17, 1997, Section: News

Code breakers lured for crypto challenge

Mississauga, Ontario - Certicom Corp. is hoping that the code-breaking challenges that became popular in certain public-key communities, primarily around RSA and PGP algorithms, will spur interest in the elliptic curve class of public-key crypto algorithms. The company has launched an Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem challenge (www.certicom.ca), and is offering prizes for determining an ECC private key based on knowledge of the public key.

One group of "Exercise" problems is considered computationally hard, involving key sizes of 79, 89, and 97 bits, with a top prize in 97-bit resolution of $5,000. A second set, the Levels I and II Challenge problems, involve key resolution considered infeasible using current mathematical methods. Top prize in this set is $100,000 for a solution to a 359-bit ECC private key.

Elliptic curve theory, pioneered by Certicom's chief cryptographer Scott Vanstone, has garnered attention for using finite fields to create public-key systems.

Participants must solve Exercise and Challenge problems using one or both of two finite-field methods adopted as ECC standards-the 2(m)-element field method, or an integer field of modulo odd primes.