Paper 2007/391 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2007/391 ↗

A novel public key crypto system based on semi-modules over quotient semi-rings

Abstract

In A generalization of the original Diffie-Hellman key exchange in (ℤ/pℤ)* found a new depth when Miller and Koblitz suggested that such a protocol could be used with the group over an elliptic curve. Maze, Monico and Rosenthal extend such a generalization to the setting of a Semi-group action on a finite set, more precisely, linear actions of abelian semi-rings on semi-modules. In this paper, we extend such a generalization to the linear actions of quotient semi-rings on semi-modules. In fact, we show how the action of quotient semi-rings on a semi-module gives rise to a generalized Diffie-Hellman and ElGamal protocol. This leads naturally to a cryptographic protocol whose difficulty is based on the hardness of a particular control problem, namely the problem of steering the state of some dynamical system from an initial vector to some final location.