Calculating pow(a,b) mod n

Question

I want to calculate a^b mod n for use in RSA decryption. My code (below) returns incorrect answers. What is wrong with it?

unsigned long i         


        

Answer 1

In order to calculate pow(a,b) % n to be used for RSA decryption, the best algorithm I came across is Primality Testing ¹⁾ which is as follows:

 int modulo(int a, int b, int n){
    long long x=1, y=a; 
    while (b > 0) {
        if (b%2 == 1) {
            x = (x*y) % n; // multiplying with base
        }
        y = (y*y) % n; // squaring the base
        b /= 2;
    }
    return x % n;
}

See below reference for more details.

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¹⁾ Primality Testing : Non-deterministic Algorithms – topcoder