Performance Analysis of Goldwasser-Micali Cryptosystem

Abstract: Probabilistic encryption is the use of randomness in an encryption algorithm, so that when encrypting the same message several times it will, in general, yield different ciphertexts. To be semantically secure, that is, to hide even partial information about the plaintext, an encryption algorithm must be probabilistic. The Goldwasser-Micali cryptosystem is an asymmetric key encryption algorithm developed by ShafiGoldwasser and Silvio Micali in 1982. Goldwasser-Micali has the distinction of being the first probabilistic public-key encryption scheme which is provably secure under standard cryptographic assumptions. However, it is not an efficient cryptosystem, as ciphertexts may be several hundred times larger than the initial plaintext. The aim of this paper is to outline the key concepts involved in Goldwasser-Micali encryption algorithm and compare it with RSA . The metrics used for comparison are encryption time,decryption time and size of cipher text with varying plain text sizes which are the key considerations for choosing an encryption algorithm. The reading will be recorded for drawing inferences.