Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2003/150

On the random-oracle methodology as applied to length-restricted signature schemes

Ran Canetti and Oded Goldreich and Shai Halevi

Abstract: In earlier work, we described a ``pathological'' example of a signature scheme that is secure in the random-oracle model, but for which no secure implementation exists. For that example, however, it was crucial that the scheme is able to sign "long messages" (i.e., messages whose length is not a-priori bounded). This left open the possibility that the Random Oracle Methodology is sound with respect to signature schemes that sign only "short" messages (i.e., messages of a-priori bounded length, smaller than the length of the keys in use), and are "memoryless" (i.e., the only thing kept between different signature generations is the initial signing-key). In this work, we extend our negative result to address such signature schemes. A key ingredient in our proof is a new type of interactive proof systems, which may be of independent interest.

Category / Keywords: foundations / Digital signatures, Random-oracle model

Date: received 30 Jul 2003

Contact author: shaih at watson ibm com

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Version: 20030731:010508 (All versions of this report)

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