Sunday 4 November 2007

Pollard P-1 Method

There is also the Pollard "p-1" method, invented in 1974. It relies on Fermat's Little Theorem.
Here is a Wikipedia article about this method:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollard%27s_p_-_1_algorithm

And here is its description on the mersenneforum:
http://mersennewiki.org/index.php/P-1_Factorization_Method

Also, the pseudocode immediately below is taken from a PD document by Connelly Barnes of Oregon State University
http://oregonstate.edu/~barnesc/documents/factoring.pdf

function pollard_p1(N)
# Initial value 2^(k!) for k = 0.
two_k_fact := 1
for k from 1 to infinity
# Calculate 2^(k!) (mod N) from 2^((k-1)!).
two_k_fact := modPow(two_k_fact, k, N)
rk := gcd(two_k_fact - 1, N)
if rk <> 1 and rk <> N then
return rk, N/rk
end if
end for
end function

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