A Fast Method for Computing Multiplcative Inverses in GF(2 ) Using Normal Bases

Cryptosystems have received very much attention in recent years as importance of information security is increased. Most of Cryptosystems are defined over finite or Galois fields GF($2^m$) . In particular, the finite field GF($2^m$) is mainly used in public-key cryptosystems. These cryptosystems are constructed over finite field arithmetics, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and multiplicative inversion defined over GF($2^m$) . Hence, to implement these cryptosystems efficiently, it is important to carry out these operations defined over GF($2^m$) fast. Among these operations, since multiplicative inversion is much more time-consuming than other operations, it has become the object of lots of investigation. Recently, many methods for computing multiplicative inverses at hi호 speed has been proposed. These methods are based on format's theorem, and reduce the number of required multiplication using normal bases over GF($2^m$) . The method proposed by Itoh and Tsujii[2] among these methods reduced the required number of times of multiplication to O( log m) Also, some methods which improved the Itoh and Tsujii's method were proposed, but these methods have some problems such as complicated decomposition processes. In practical applications, m is frequently selected as a power of 2. In this parer, we propose a fast method for computing multiplicative inverses in GF($2^m$) , where m = ($2^n$) . Our method requires fewer ultiplications than the Itoh and Tsujii's method, and the decomposition process is simpler than other proposed methods.