Commit a067a870 authored by Billy Brumley's avatar Billy Brumley Committed by Matt Caswell
Browse files

ladder description: why it works

parent 36bed230
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+60 −0
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -111,6 +111,8 @@ void EC_ec_pre_comp_free(EC_PRE_COMP *pre)
 * This functions computes (in constant time) a point multiplication over the
 * EC group.
 *
 * At a high level, it is Montgomery ladder with conditional swaps.
 *
 * It performs either a fixed scalar point multiplication
 *          (scalar * generator)
 * when point is NULL, or a generic scalar point multiplication
@@ -232,6 +234,64 @@ static int ec_mul_consttime(const EC_GROUP *group, EC_POINT *r, const BIGNUM *sc
        (b)->Z_is_one ^= (t);                      \
} while(0)

    /*
     * The ladder step, with branches, is
     *
     * k[i] == 0: S = add(R, S), R = dbl(R)
     * k[i] == 1: R = add(S, R), S = dbl(S)
     *
     * Swapping R, S conditionally on k[i] leaves you with state
     *
     * k[i] == 0: T, U = R, S
     * k[i] == 1: T, U = S, R
     *
     * Then perform the ECC ops.
     *
     * U = add(T, U)
     * T = dbl(T)
     *
     * Which leaves you with state
     *
     * k[i] == 0: U = add(R, S), T = dbl(R)
     * k[i] == 1: U = add(S, R), T = dbl(S)
     *
     * Swapping T, U conditionally on k[i] leaves you with state
     *
     * k[i] == 0: R, S = T, U
     * k[i] == 1: R, S = U, T
     *
     * Which leaves you with state
     *
     * k[i] == 0: S = add(R, S), R = dbl(R)
     * k[i] == 1: R = add(S, R), S = dbl(S)
     *
     * So we get the same logic, but instead of a branch it's a
     * conditional swap, followed by ECC ops, then another conditional swap.
     *
     * Optimization: The end of iteration i and start of i-1 looks like
     *
     * ...
     * CSWAP(k[i], R, S)
     * ECC
     * CSWAP(k[i], R, S)
     * (next iteration)
     * CSWAP(k[i-1], R, S)
     * ECC
     * CSWAP(k[i-1], R, S)
     * ...
     *
     * So instead of two contiguous swaps, you can merge the condition
     * bits and do a single swap.
     *
     * k[i]    k[i-1]    Outcome
     * 0       0         No Swap
     * 0       1         Swap
     * 1       0         Swap
     * 1       1         No Swap
     *
     * This is XOR. pbit tracks the previous bit of k.
     */

    for (i = order_bits - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
        kbit = BN_is_bit_set(k, i) ^ pbit;
        EC_POINT_CSWAP(kbit, r, s, group_top, Z_is_one);