# Newbie question: one-way functions in cryptography

I'm reading this article on the basics of cryptography and it says that the main principle is about taking such an algorithm that knowing the end result and the algorithm, an eavesdropper wouldn't be able to determine the initial data.

They give an example:

Supposedly, I know the numbers in the second and third row, but don't know the x and can't derive x. But I can: all I need is to do something like this:

for (int i=0; i<100_000_000; i++)  {
if (i%7==5)  {
if (getPower(i, 3)!=-1)  {
System.out.println(i+", " + getPower(i, 3));
}
}

}


It gives me:

243, 5
177147, 11


meaning, that 243 and 177147 are 3^5 and 3^11 respectively and also give the residual 5 when divided by 7. So it doesn't look like a one-way function to me.

• Actually in cryptography you usually only get the third row. Also the numbers are usually significantly larger with thousands of binary digits for the exponent instead of 3. – SEJPM Oct 18 at 10:36
• That article claims among other things that signing is the same as encryption. That's a sure sign that you should take everything they have to say on cryptography with heaps of salt. – Maeher Oct 18 at 11:21
• @Maeher Thank you for the warning. I saw the article being recommended by some user on reddit and decided to give it a try. Could you maybe advise some other more reliable 101-type articles? – Ans Oct 18 at 12:04
• There are many things wrong with that article. It still promotes MD4 and MD5 (the article is from 2010!). It says that RSA keys can be swapped (well, it says "can be swopped" , but yeah). That signature verification must be decryption and comparison of the hash value. It explains secret key encryption is insecure, right after explaining a way to establish keys using DH. Algorithms and ciphers are apparently the same thing... Please buy a book instead or follow a course. Books generally get peer reviewed; this one just get rave reviews from other new users probably on style alone. – Maarten Bodewes Oct 18 at 13:45
• @Maarten Bodewes I'm not a crypto expert and likely won't ever be. I'm just going to set up my first VPS server and it requires the use of SSH, so I wanted to get at least a basic understanding of that public-private key thing. If you could recommend resources that would help me gain it, I would greatly appreciate it. – Ans Oct 18 at 14:06

• When using these system in cryptography we don't actually perform $$2^{1000}$$ or so multiplications but instead use repeated square and multiply which brings this down to a few thousand multiplications. Note that this algorithms requires full knowledge of the exponent to be applied.