Computing Low-Weight Discrete Logarithms

We propose some new baby-step giant-step algorithms for computing “low-weight” discrete logarithms; that is, for computing discrete logarithms in which the radix-b representation of the exponent is known to have only a small number of nonzero digits. Prior to this work, such algorithms had been proposed for the case where the exponent is known to have low Hamming weight (i.e., the radix-2 case). Our new algorithms (i) improve the best-known deterministic complexity for the radix-2 case, and then (ii) generalize from radix-2 to arbitrary radixes b > 1. We also discuss how our new algorithms can be used to attack several recent Verifier-based Password Authenticated Key Exchange (VPAKE) protocols from the cryptographic literature with the conclusion that the new algorithms render those constructions completely insecure in practice.