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Can you please help me with this RSA Question? Decipher the following message to

ID: 3587831 • Letter: C

Question

Can you please help me with this RSA Question?

Decipher the following message to get the initials of an organization: 88 17 2 Each letter is encoded using the same 0-25 scheme as the previous problem, then individually encrypted in RSA with public key (e = 23, n = 55). For example, the message "HEY" wll be encoded and encrypted as follows. The letter H corresponds to 7, and 723 mod 55 equals 13. The letter E corresponds to 4, and 423 mod 55 equals 9. The letter Y corresponds to 24, and 2423 mod 55 equals 19. So the mssage "HEY", when encoded and encrypted, reads as follows. 13 9 19 Solve for the private key d, then decrypt and decode the "8 8 17 2" message. What inials do you find?

Explanation / Answer

So, first let’s list out the details given to us..

Encoded cypher text is : 8 8 17 2

(It has to be processed separately)

public key e=23, n=55

So, in order to decrypt the cypher text, the following formula is used..

M = Cd mod n

where M is plain text message, C is a cypher text, d is the secret key missing here.

There’s a formula to obtain ‘d’ using ‘e’ and ‘n’ which is

[d * e] mod (n) = 1

So first we need to find (n)

As per RSA, ‘n’ is a multiplication of 2 prime numbers p and q. Here, n = 55. So, if we factorize 55, we will get 1, 5, 11 and 55 are its factors.

Among which 5 and 11 are the only prime numbers.

So, we will take p = 5 and q = 11. n = p * q = 5 * 11 = 55 is satisfied.

(n) = (p-1) (q-1) = 4 * 10 = 40

Therefore, d * 23 mod 40 = 1

Now, try to put different value of ‘d’ to find which is the value satisfying above equation.

d=1, 23 mod 40 = 23 1

d=2, 46 mod 40 = 6 1

d=3, 69 mod 40 = 29 1

d=4, 92 mod 40 = 12 1

d=5, 115 mod 40 = 35 1

d=6, 138 mod 40 = 18 1

d=7, 161 mod 40 = 1

So, d = 7

So, let’s decrypt the cypher text 8 8 17 2 number by number

C = 8, M = 87 mod 55 = 2

C = 17, M = 177 mod 55 = 8

C = 2, M = 27 mod 55 = 18

So, plain text is 2 2 8 18

Now, decoding it as per 0-25 scheme, where A is 0 and Z is 25, the plain text becomes CCIS.

Do comment if there’s any query. I’ll surely address it.

Thank you. :)