Computing discrete logarithms in $GF(p^6)$

Abstract : The security of torus-based and pairing-based cryptography relies on the difficulty of computing discrete logarithms in small degree extensions of finite fields of large characteristic. It has already been shown that for degrees 2 and 3, the discrete logarithm problem is not as hard as once thought. We address the question of degree 6 and aim at providing real-life timings for such problems. We report on a record DL computation in a 132-bit subgroup of $GF(p^6)$ for a 22-decimal digit prime, with $p^6$ having 422 bits. The previous record was for a 79-bit subgroup in a 240-bit field. We used NFS-DL with a sieving phase over degree 2 polynomials, instead of the more classical degree 1 case. We show how to improve many parts of the NFS-DL algorithm to reach this target.