Laboratory Session 5

1. Introduction
In this lab you will use MATLAB to break a weakened form of the RSA public key
encryption algorithm using a very short key and determine the plaintext from a ciphertext
message.
MATLAB can be found by:
Start >MATLAB
A summary of how the RSA algorithm works is described in Section 3. You will need to
understand this section in order to determine the private key from the given public key.
Should you need it, an introduction / revision of MATLAB is in Section 4. All the
commands you need to do the lab are included in this section. If you are unfamiliar with
MATLAB do this section first.

2. Method
You are to decrypt the following message c which you know was encrypted with the given
public key of [n,e] = [2407,57].
c = [2050 2296 640 479 640 2377 1274 479 640 2377
2395 194 476 2377 2395 602 2014 640 1205 2377
476 1888 2377 640 1142 1421 479 602 2014 2395
586 476 1142 749 2377 476 1142 640 2377 2395
2296 1274 2395 2377 194 586 1285 1285 2377 2014
479 640 1904 640 1142 2395 2377 602 476 540
479 2377 1205 586 1205 2395 640 479 2377 1888
479 476 2011 2377 479 640 1274 1741 586 1142
1019 2377 602 476 540 479 2377 1741 586 1274
479 602 2377]
1. Install the routine decryptString.m in the work directory. This can be done by
dragging the file from the desktop directly into the left-hand panel as shown below:

This routine decrypts a string of cipher text using the appropriate key. You have to
determine the private key from the public key.
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2. Determine the private key [n, d] associated with the public key [n, e] = [2407, 57].
You may assume that d is less than n and is unique. You will need to construct a for
loop to test different values of d.
3. Use the private key to decrypt the message. This can be done using the
decryptString.m routine. Its use is
decryptString(n, d, c)
where n and d is the private key and c is a vector containing the cipher text.
4. To obtain the full message, repeat with the public key [n, e] = [7663, 89] and for the
cipher text c below.
c = [2980 3647 1145 7023 4485 3647 7130 7023 6069 5363
2980 6069 7023 3911 2971 5943 5943 7023 1889 5561
7130 454 7130 3647 6069 7023 3243 4485 2957 5561
7023 5465 4485 454 7130 5561 3647 1883 7130 3647
6069 656 7023 6689 2206 5561 2957 4580 7130 7023
6238 4580 5363 3647 7130 2971 5561 1603]

3. RSA Algorithm
To create the public key select two large positive prime numbers p and q
Compute n = p*q
Compute x = (p-1)*(q-1)
Choose an integer e which is relatively prime to x.
Public key is then [e, n]
To create the private key
compute d such that (d*e) mod x = 1
Private key is then [d, n]
Data to encrypt is m
To encrypt m, compute c =(me) mod n
To decrypt c, compute m=(cd) mod n

4. MATLAB Revision / Introduction

MATLAB is designed primarily to operate on matrices and vectors. We only need to deal
with operations on vectors. The command window is used to run the MATLAB instructions.
The Command History window keeps a record of all the instructions.

Note that all the Matlab instructions should be typed in the command window.
 Laboratory Session 5

Vector definition
The simplest way to define a matrix is to list its elements in order

Try a = [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9]

Note : You can suppress the listing of the array by adding a semi-colon at the end. Also note
that MATLAB is case sensitive.

Try A = [ 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19];

Accessing vector elements

Individual elements of an array A or string S are accessed by A(i)

Try A(7)

Putting a semicolon after a command suppresses output.

Try a;
Now try a

Displaying values
disp (x) displays the value of x
Try disp(A) and disp(A(2)
Putting a semicolon after a command suppresses output.
Try disp(a);

‘for’ loop
for loops in MATLAB can be implemented with
for count = start value : end value
statement
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end
Try
for i = 1:20
x(i)= i;
disp(x(i))
end;
disp(x) displays the value of x

Strings in MATLAB
Strings of characters can be defined in MATLAB with the ' delimiter.
Try textstring = 'a string of text'
Individual elements of the string can be accessed with the number of the element (starting
from 1) in parentheses.
Try textstring(5)

Useful MATLAB commands

factor(n) returns the prime factors of n
for loop for i = 1:20 x(i)= i; end
if statement if (x==1) disp(x)
mod(x, y) returns x mod y
length(x) returns the length of a vector x
break ends execution of current for loop
disp(x) displays the value of x

5. Assessment
A report is required for this lab. The report is to consist of the following sections
1. An outline of the RSA algorithm (2 marks)
2. Your MATLAB code for breaking the algorithm with explanation as to what the
code does. (4 marks).
3. The results from running your code and the first decrypted message (2 marks)
4. The results from running your code and second decrypted message (2 marks)
The assignment is to be submitted via TURNITIN. Please note that duplicated code will
be treated as plagiarism.