Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2013/264

Encrypted Secret Sharing and Analysis by Plaintext Randomization

Stephen R. Tate and Roopa Vishwanathan and Scott Weeks

Abstract: In this paper we consider the problem of secret sharing where shares are encrypted using a public-key encryption (PKE) scheme and ciphertexts are publicly available. While intuition tells us that the secret should be protected if the PKE is secure against chosen-ciphertext attacks (i.e., CCA-secure), formally proving this reveals some subtle and non-trivial challenges. We isolate the problems that this raises, and devise a new analysis technique called ``plaintext randomization'' that can successfully overcome these challenges, resulting in the desired proof. The encryption of different shares can use one key or multiple keys, with natural applications in both scenarios.

Category / Keywords: public-key cryptography / public-key cryptography, secret sharing, reduction, cryptographic games

Original Publication (with minor differences): To appear in ISC 2013

Date: received 8 May 2013, last revised 23 Oct 2013

Contact author: vishwanathan roopa at gmail com

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20131023:205031 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2013/264

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