In "Practical Cryptography", Schneier states that the you can prove that when n is not a prime, a certain property of a mod n holds for at most 25% of possible values 1 < a < n. He later states that Fermat's test can be fooled by Carmichael numbers, and finally he basically says that Miller-Rabin is based on Fermat's test.
It appears that Fermat's test can be fooled by Carmichael numbers, whereas Miller-Rabin is immune, but I'm not sure why. It appears that M-R tests that just before the squaring of a that produces a residue of 1, is the residue n-1. Apparently that's not true for most bases of Carmichael numbers. Is that the distinction that makes Miller-Rabin a stronger primality test? It's amazing how many words that took to state, and I didn't even specify the squaring process. -- http://www.lightconsulting.com/~travis/ -><- "We already have enough fast, insecure systems." -- Schneier & Ferguson GPG fingerprint: 50A1 15C5 A9DE 23B9 ED98 C93E 38E9 204A 94C2 641B --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
