ABSTRACT
Recall from Chapter 2 that although it is very easy to compute a modular exponentiation:
b = ax (mod p)
it is in general very difficult to go in the other direction, that is, given integers a, b and p, to find x satisfying the above equation. Finding the value of x is called the discrete logarithm problem, and although it can be solved if p satisfies certain properties-for example, if p−1 has only small factors-there is no known efficient way of solving it in general.
