Fermat's primality test vs. Miller-Rabin

["Travis H." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

In "Practical Cryptography", Schneier states that the you can prove
that when n is not a prime, a certain property of a mod n holds for at
most 25% of possible values 1 < a < n.  He later states that Fermat's
test can be fooled by Carmichael numbers, and finally he basically
says that Miller-Rabin is based on Fermat's test.

It appears that Fermat's test can be fooled by Carmichael numbers,
whereas Miller-Rabin is immune, but I'm not sure why.  It appears that
M-R tests that just before the squaring of a that produces a residue
of 1, is the residue n-1.  Apparently that's not true for most bases
of Carmichael numbers.  Is that the distinction that makes
Miller-Rabin a stronger primality test?

It's amazing how many words that took to state, and I didn't even
specify the squaring process.
--
http://www.lightconsulting.com/~travis/  -><-
"We already have enough fast, insecure systems." -- Schneier & Ferguson
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