Exponentiation on a point on elliptic curve unreasonably fast in SageMath

Question

I am working on elliptic curves in sagemath. I was trying to collect benchmarks for group operation and exponentiation of points on NIST P-256 elliptic curve. When I tried to perform a group operation on 2 points on the curve, it takes roughly 2 micro seconds. When I tried to perform exponentiation on a point in elliptic curve with a random exponent, it takes only 3 micro seconds. How is this even possible? Since I am exponentiating with a 256 bit value, this should at least take time required for 256 group operations, which is more than 0.5ms. I am worried if my code is wrong!

p = 115792089210356248762697446949407573530086143415290314195533631308867097853951 
order = 115792089210356248762697446949407573529996955224135760342422259061068512044369 
b = 0x5ac635d8aa3a93e7b3ebbd55769886bc651d06b0cc53b0f63bce3c3e27d2604b 
F = GF(p) 
E = EllipticCurve(F, [-3,b]) 
runs = 10000 
G = E.abelian_group()

F2 = GF(order) 
exponent = [F2.random_element() for i in range(runs)]
e2 = [G.random_element() for i in range(runs)]

t1 = time() 
for i in range(runs):   
      e = Integer(exponent[i])*e2[i] 
t2 = time() 
print  "Time per operation = ", (t2 - t1)/runs , " seconds"

e1 = [G.random_element() for i in range(runs)] 
e2 = [G.random_element() for i in range(runs)] 
t1 = time() 
for i in range(runs):   
         e = e1[i]+e2[i] 
t2 = time() 
print  "Time per operation = ", (t2 - t1)/runs , " seconds"

`e2` in line 13 is undefined. It'd be best to post a self-contained snippet of code. — Luca De Feo, May 30 '19 at 13:01

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 30 '19 at 13:37

Do not use E.abelian_group() if your goal is to time the elliptic curve scalar multiplication:

sage: P = G.random_element()
sage: P.parent()
Additive abelian group isomorphic to Z/115792089210356248762697446949407573529996955224135760342422259061068512044369 embedded in Abelian group of points on Elliptic Curve defined by y^2 = x^3 + 115792089210356248762697446949407573530086143415290314195533631308867097853948*x + 41058363725152142129326129780047268409114441015993725554835256314039467401291 over Finite Field of size 115792089210356248762697446949407573530086143415290314195533631308867097853951
sage: P.__class__
<class 'sage.groups.additive_abelian.additive_abelian_wrapper.AdditiveAbelianGroupWrapper_with_category.element_class'>
sage: Q = E.random_element()
sage: Q.parent()
Abelian group of points on Elliptic Curve defined by y^2 = x^3 + 115792089210356248762697446949407573530086143415290314195533631308867097853948*x + 41058363725152142129326129780047268409114441015993725554835256314039467401291 over Finite Field of size 115792089210356248762697446949407573530086143415290314195533631308867097853951
sage: Q.__class__
<class 'sage.schemes.elliptic_curves.ell_point.EllipticCurvePoint_finite_field'>

E.abelian_group() is a discrete log representation of E(_p): one (or more) generator for the group is chosen:

sage: G.gens()
((20722840521025081260844746572646324413063607211611059363846436737341554936251 : 92859506829486198345561119925850006904261672023969849576492780649068338418688 : 1),)

and points are represented as vectors of exponents:

sage: P.vector()
(115792089210356248762697446949407573529996955224135760342422259061068512044368)

hence c*P simply multiplies the exponent by c and reduces modulo the order of the curve.

Use E.random_element() to get points of the curve and perform true elliptic curve operations:

sage: c = 2^100
sage: %timeit c*Q
100 loops, best of 3: 3.88 ms per loop
sage: c = 2^1000
sage: %timeit c*Q
10 loops, best of 3: 32.4 ms per loop
sage: c = 2^10000
sage: %timeit c*Q
1 loop, best of 3: 321 ms per loop

Exponentiation on a point on elliptic curve unreasonably fast in SageMath

1 Answers1