what is the size of public key for ecdsa spec256r1

I tried to generate pair key for ecdsa using openssl.

Why the public key length is 65 bytes and not 64?

Create private key

openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp256r1 -noout -out private.pem

Generate public key

openssl ec -in private.pem -text -noout

read EC key

Private-Key: (256 bit)

priv: 13:10:bc:9c:a8:3d:8b:fa:91:b2:a4:f8:e5:d1:5f: 53:56:eb:16:91:86:aa:6b:c5:16:8b:16:e9:04:4e: 03:a9

pub: 04:51:02:22:75:dd:3d:25:ee:b6:aa:a5:c6:c6:27: 5c:07:c5:e6:e9:75:40:4a:b3:e4:cd:22:e5:cc:9a: bd:1b:14:0e:53:6a:57:9a:26:98:d2:2f:6b:a4:9b: a4:47:fe:ab:76:99:59:26:39:ac:2b:2e:93:b3:ef: f0:8b:f5:3b:86

ASN1 OID: prime256v1

NIST CURVE: P-256

yes

Posted 2019-07-29T21:10:35.403

Reputation: 11

Answers

According to this page, the 65 byte public key is the uncompressed variant.

The first byte 0x04 is the prefix, then it is followed by 2 32 bit numbers.

I cannot explain why this is the case, not an crypto expert. Maybe someone can elaborate on that.

Daniel

Posted 2019-07-29T21:10:35.403

Reputation: 819

spec256r1 is an elliptic curve (the EC in ECDSA). Public keys in ECDSA are expressed as a co-ordinate on the curve, i.e. an x and a y value. As you say 0x04 indicates the key is in uncompressed format, meaning the whole x and y values are given - each of which are 32 bits in length. – Matt Caswell – 2019-07-30T08:12:23.553