Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2007/069

Nominative Signature: Application, Security Model and Construction

Dennis Y. W. Liu and Duncan S. Wong and Xinyi Huang and Guilin Wang and Qiong Huang and Yi Mu and Willy Susilo

Abstract: Since the introduction of nominative signature in 1996, there have been only a few schemes proposed and all of them have already been found flawed. In addition, there is no formal security model defined. Even more problematic, there is no convincing application proposed. Due to these problems, the research of nominative signature has almost stalled and it is unknown if a secure nominative signature scheme can be built or there exists an application for it. In this paper, we give positive answers to these problems. First, we illustrate that nominative signature is a better tool for building user certification systems which are originally believed to be best implemented using a universal designated-verifier signature. Second, we propose a formal definition and a rigorous set of adversarial models for nominative signature. Third, we show that Chaum's undeniable signature can be transformed efficiently to a nominative signature and prove its security.

Category / Keywords: public-key cryptography / digital signature, nominative signature, undeniable signature

Date: received 21 Feb 2007, last revised 28 Feb 2007

Contact author: duncan at cityu edu hk

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20070301:043547 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2007/069

Discussion forum: Show discussion | Start new discussion