It seems to me that recording intermediate residues for comparison during double checking is not going to save much time; although you'll save on average 50% of the doublechecking time for exponents that are mistested (assuming even and uncorrelated distribution of the point in checking that the error occurs), mistested exponents are only a small fraction of the double checking work.. I forget the numbers being tossed around, but you'd only save 50% of (the error rate) of the checking time. HOWEVER, there is a potential use for the intermediate residues anyway... as larger and larger exponenets start getting tested, and algorithms start having to be modified to support the testing of those big exponents, we may run into a situation where a widespread subset of machines with some obscure hardware bug test a range of exponents wrongly... using intermediate residues during double checking would halve the time that would pass before the widespread error became obvious, and would reduce the amount of wasted work performed. -Ethan O'Connor [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
