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I have to elements of multiplicative group of finite field with generator g - $$g^x,g^y $$ Can I get? $$g^{xy} $$

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  • $\begingroup$ This is Diffie-Hellman problem. Now, what is your actual question? Research on Diffie-Hellman Problem? Or you are given some instance of it? $\endgroup$
    – kelalaka
    Nov 11, 2019 at 15:07
  • $\begingroup$ @kelalaka, Task is next, I have next equation $$g^(x(y + a))$$. And this equation check on recipient, $$g^x,g^y$$ knows everyone (x and y - knows only me and recipient). "a" is index(from 0 to 20 eg) in database . Pipeline is next: I compute $$g^{(x(y + a))}$$ (a - is my index) on my part and send it to recipient. Recipient iterate over all indexes and solve equation, if some result are equals - user is registered. As I understand. There is no way to send msg by intruder without knowing x and y. $\endgroup$
    – Alex
    Nov 11, 2019 at 15:37
  • $\begingroup$ Hmmmm, if everyone knows $g^x, g^y$, and you transmit $g^{x(y+a)}$, and someone overhears it, and guesses $a$, then he has a guess to $g^{xy}$, which he can use in a later login attempt. Do you have something that protects against this sort of thing? $\endgroup$
    – poncho
    Nov 12, 2019 at 21:57

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The problem 'given a group and the elements $g, g^x, g^y$, find $g^{xy}$' is known as the Diffie-Hellman problem (or, more precisely, the computational Diffie-Hellman problem).

As for how difficult it is, well, we typically work with groups where this is difficult (by design; we often need to assume that the DH problem is hard).

As for how it might be solved, well, in a finite field multiplicative group, the best way of solving it is to solve the discrete log problem; this is, given $g, g^x$, recover $x$ (and from there, you can compute $(g^y)^x = g^{xy}$. If you are in a group where recovering $x$ (or $y$) directly is infeasible, then solving the DH problem (to the best of our knowledge) is also infeasible.

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