Exponentiation

Logarithms also undo a fundamental arithmetic operation, exponentiation. Exponentiation is when you raise a number to a certain power. For example, raising 2 to the power 3 equals 8.

In 5⁴ the base is 5 and the power is 4, so there are 4 identical factors of 5, and exponentiation gives 625 as the result.

"The remarkable fact about the system is that it achieves such a high level of security with only six exponentiations," Boneh said, referring to the calculations used to raise numbers to a power. Other systems do exponentiation once, suggesting that this system may be about six times slower because exponentiation is the most time-consuming step in encrypting the data.

"The remarkable fact about the system is that it achieves such a high level of security with only six exponentiations," Boneh said, referring to the calculations used to raise numbers to a power. Other systems do exponentiation once, suggesting that this system may be about six times slower because exponentiation is the most time-consuming step in encrypting the data.