# The Elliptic Curve Factorization Method#

The elliptic curve factorization method (ECM) is the fastest way to factor a known composite integer if one of the factors is relatively small (up to approximately 80 bits / 25 decimal digits). To factor an arbitrary integer it must be combined with a primality test. The ECM.factor() method is an example for how to combine ECM with a primality test to compute the prime factorization of integers.

Sage includes GMP-ECM, which is a highly optimized implementation of Lenstra’s elliptic curve factorization method. See https://gitlab.inria.fr/zimmerma/ecm for more about GMP-ECM.

AUTHORS:

These people wrote GMP-ECM: Pierrick Gaudry, Jim Fougeron, Laurent Fousse, Alexander Kruppa, Dave Newman, Paul Zimmermann

BUGS:

Output from ecm is non-deterministic. Doctests should set the random seed, but currently there is no facility to do so.

class sage.interfaces.ecm.ECM(B1=10, B2=None, **kwds)#

Create an interface to the GMP-ECM elliptic curve method factorization program.

INPUT:

• B1 – integer. Stage 1 bound

• B2 – integer. Stage 2 bound (or interval B2min-B2max)

In addition the following keyword arguments can be used:

• x0 – integer $$x$$. use $$x$$ as initial point

• sigma – integer $$s$$. Use s as curve generator [ecm]

• A – integer $$a$$. Use a as curve parameter [ecm]

• k – integer $$n$$. Perform $$>= n$$ steps in stage 2

• power – integer $$n$$. Use $$x^n$$ for Brent-Suyama’s extension

• dickson – integer $$n$$. Use $$n$$-th Dickson’s polynomial for Brent-Suyama’s extension

• c – integer $$n$$. Perform $$n$$ runs for each input

• pm1 – boolean. perform P-1 instead of ECM

• pp1 – boolean. perform P+1 instead of ECM

• q – boolean. quiet mode

• v – boolean. verbose mode

• timestamp – boolean. print a time stamp with each number

• mpzmod – boolean. use GMP’s mpz_mod for mod reduction

• modmuln – boolean. use Montgomery’s MODMULN for mod reduction

• redc – boolean. use Montgomery’s REDC for mod reduction

• nobase2 – boolean. Disable special base-2 code

• base2 – integer $$n$$. Force base 2 mode with 2^n+1 (n>0) or 2^n-1 (n<0)

• save – string filename. Save residues at end of stage 1 to file

• savea – string filename. Like -save, appends to existing files

• resume – string filename. Resume residues from file, reads from stdin if file is “-”

• primetest – boolean. Perform a primality test on input

• treefile – string. Store product tree of F in files f.0 f.1 …

• i – integer. increment B1 by this constant on each run

• I – integer $$f$$. auto-calculated increment for B1 multiplied by $$f$$ scale factor.

• inp – string. Use file as input (instead of redirecting stdin)

• b – boolean. Use breadth-first mode of file processing

• d – boolean. Use depth-first mode of file processing (default)

• one – boolean. Stop processing a candidate if a factor is found (looping mode )

• n – boolean. Run ecm in ‘nice’ mode (below normal priority)

• nn – boolean. Run ecm in ‘very nice’ mode (idle priority)

• t – integer $$n$$. Trial divide candidates before P-1, P+1 or ECM up to $$n$$.

• ve – integer $$n$$. Verbosely show short ($$< n$$ character) expressions on each loop

• B2scale – integer. Multiplies the default B2 value

• go – integer. Preload with group order val, which can be a simple expression, or can use N as a placeholder for the number being factored.

• prp – string. use shell command cmd to do large primality tests

• prplen – integer. only candidates longer than this number of digits are ‘large’

• prpval – integer. value>=0 which indicates the prp command foundnumber to be PRP.

• prptmp – file. outputs n value to temp file prior to running (NB. gets deleted)

• prplog – file. otherwise get PRP results from this file (NB. gets deleted)

• prpyes – string. Literal string found in prplog file when number is PRP

• prpno – string. Literal string found in prplog file when number is composite

factor(n, factor_digits=None, B1=2000, proof=False, **kwds)#

Return a probable prime factorization of $$n$$.

Combines GMP-ECM with a primality test, see is_prime(). The primality test is provable or probabilistic depending on the $$proof$$ flag.

Moreover, for small $$n$$ PARI is used directly.

Warning

There is no mathematical guarantee that the factors returned are actually prime if proof=False (default). It is extremely likely, though. Currently, there are no known examples where this fails.

INPUT:

• n – a positive integer

• factor_digits – integer or None (default). Optional guess at how many digits are in the smallest factor.

• B1 – initial lower bound, defaults to 2000 (15 digit factors). Used if factor_digits is not specified.

• proof – boolean (default: False). Whether to prove that the factors are prime.

• kwds – keyword arguments to pass to ecm-gmp. See help for ECM for more details.

OUTPUT:

A list of integers whose product is n.

Note

Trial division should typically be performed, but this is not implemented (yet) in this method.

If you suspect that n is the product of two similarly-sized primes, other methods (such as a quadratic sieve – use the qsieve command) will usually be faster.

The best known algorithm for factoring in the case where all factors are large is the general number field sieve. This is not implemented in Sage; You probably want to use a cluster for problems of this size.

EXAMPLES:

sage: ecm.factor(602400691612422154516282778947806249229526581)
[45949729863572179, 13109994191499930367061460439]
sage: ecm.factor((2^197 + 1)/3)  # long time
[197002597249, 1348959352853811313, 251951573867253012259144010843]
sage: ecm.factor(179427217^13) == [179427217] * 13
True

find_factor(n, factor_digits=None, B1=2000, **kwds)#

Return a factor of n.

See also factor() if you want a prime factorization of $$n$$.

INPUT:

• n – a positive integer,

• factor_digits – integer or None (default). Decimal digits estimate of the wanted factor.

• B1 – integer. Stage 1 bound (default 2000). This is used as bound if factor_digits is not specified.

• kwds – optional keyword parameters.

OUTPUT:

List of integers whose product is n. For certain lengths of the factor, this is the best algorithm to find a factor.

Note

ECM is not a good primality test. Not finding a factorization is only weak evidence for $$n$$ being prime. You should run a good primality test before calling this function.

EXAMPLES:

sage: f = ECM()
sage: n = 508021860739623467191080372196682785441177798407961
sage: f.find_factor(n)
[79792266297612017, 6366805760909027985741435139224233]


Note that the input number cannot have more than 4095 digits:

sage: f = 2^2^14+1
sage: ecm.find_factor(f)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
ValueError: n must have at most 4095 digits

get_last_params()#

Return the parameters (including the curve) of the last ecm run.

In the case that the number was factored successfully, this will return the parameters that yielded the factorization.

OUTPUT:

A dictionary containing the parameters for the most recent factorization.

EXAMPLES:

sage: ecm.factor((2^197 + 1)/3)             # long time
[197002597249, 1348959352853811313, 251951573867253012259144010843]
sage: ecm.get_last_params()                 # random output
{'poly': 'x^1', 'sigma': '1785694449', 'B1': '8885', 'B2': '1002846'}

interact()#

Interactively interact with the ECM program.

EXAMPLES:

sage: ecm.interact()    # not tested

one_curve(n, factor_digits=None, B1=2000, algorithm='ECM', **kwds)#

Run one single ECM (or P-1/P+1) curve on input n.

Note that trying a single curve is not particularly useful by itself. One typically needs to run over thousands of trial curves to factor $$n$$.

INPUT:

• n – a positive integer

• factor_digits – integer. Decimal digits estimate of the wanted factor.

• B1 – integer. Stage 1 bound (default 2000)

• algorithm – either “ECM” (default), “P-1” or “P+1”

OUTPUT:

a list [p, q] where p and q are integers and n = p * q. If no factor was found, then p = 1 and q = n.

Warning

Neither p nor q in the output is guaranteed to be prime.

EXAMPLES:

sage: f = ECM()
sage: n = 508021860739623467191080372196682785441177798407961
sage: f.one_curve(n, B1=10000, sigma=11)
[1, 508021860739623467191080372196682785441177798407961]
sage: f.one_curve(n, B1=10000, sigma=1022170541)
[79792266297612017, 6366805760909027985741435139224233]
sage: n = 432132887883903108009802143314445113500016816977037257
sage: f.one_curve(n, B1=500000, algorithm="P-1")
[67872792749091946529, 6366805760909027985741435139224233]
sage: n = 2088352670731726262548647919416588631875815083
sage: f.one_curve(n, B1=2000, algorithm="P+1", x0=5)
[328006342451, 6366805760909027985741435139224233]

recommended_B1(factor_digits)#

Return recommended B1 setting.

INPUT:

• factor_digits – integer. Number of digits.

OUTPUT:

Integer. Recommended settings from http://www.mersennewiki.org/index.php/Elliptic_Curve_Method

EXAMPLES:

sage: ecm.recommended_B1(33)
1000000

time(n, factor_digits, verbose=False)#

Print a runtime estimate.

BUGS:

This method should really return something and not just print stuff on the screen.

INPUT:

• n – a positive integer

• factor_digits – the (estimated) number of digits of the smallest factor

OUTPUT:

An approximation for the amount of time it will take to find a factor of size factor_digits in a single process on the current computer. This estimate is provided by GMP-ECM’s verbose option on a single run of a curve.

EXAMPLES:

sage: n = next_prime(11^23)*next_prime(11^37)
sage: ecm.time(n, 35)                  # random output
Expected curves: 910, Expected time: 23.95m

sage: ecm.time(n, 30, verbose=True)     # random output
GMP-ECM 6.4.4 [configured with MPIR 2.6.0, --enable-asm-redc] [ECM]
Running on localhost.localdomain
Input number is 304481639541418099574459496544854621998616257489887231115912293 (63 digits)
Using MODMULN [mulredc:0, sqrredc:0]
Using B1=250000, B2=128992510, polynomial Dickson(3), sigma=3244548117
dF=2048, k=3, d=19110, d2=11, i0=3
Expected number of curves to find a factor of n digits:
35  40  45  50  55  60  65  70  75  80
4911  70940  1226976  2.5e+07  5.8e+08  1.6e+10  2.7e+13  4e+18  5.4e+23  Inf
Step 1 took 230ms
Using 10 small primes for NTT
Estimated memory usage: 4040K
Initializing tables of differences for F took 0ms
Computing roots of F took 9ms
Building F from its roots took 16ms
Computing 1/F took 9ms
Initializing table of differences for G took 0ms
Computing roots of G took 8ms
Building G from its roots took 16ms
Computing roots of G took 7ms
Building G from its roots took 16ms
Computing G * H took 6ms
Reducing  G * H mod F took 5ms
Computing roots of G took 7ms
Building G from its roots took 17ms
Computing G * H took 5ms
Reducing  G * H mod F took 5ms
Computing polyeval(F,G) took 34ms
Computing product of all F(g_i) took 0ms
Step 2 took 164ms
Expected time to find a factor of n digits:
35  40  45  50  55  60  65  70  75  80
32.25m  7.76h  5.60d  114.21d  7.27y  196.42y  337811y  5e+10y  7e+15y  Inf

Expected curves: 4911, Expected time: 32.25m