. In Pollard's rho method, an iterating function f is used to define a sequence (y i ) by y i+1 = f(y i ) for i = 0; 1; 2; : : : , with some starting value y 0 . In this paper, we define and discuss new iterating functions for computing discrete logarithms with the rho method. We compare their performances in experiments with elliptic curve groups. Our experiments show that one of our newly defined functions is expected to reduce the number of steps by a factor of approximately 0:8, in comparison with Pollard's originally used function, and we show that this holds independently of the size of the group order. For group orders large enough such that the run time for precomputation can be neglected, this means a real-time speed-up of more than 1:2. 1. Introduction Let G be a finite cyclic group, written multiplicatively, and generated by the group element g. Given an element h in G, we wish to find the least non-negative number x such that g x = h. This problem is the discre..
