Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2015/653

Homomorphic Signature Schemes - A survey

Giulia Traverso and Denise Demirel and Johannes Buchmann

Abstract: Homomorphic signature schemes are an important primitive for many applications and since their introduction numerous solutions have been presented. Thus, in this work we provide the first exhaustive, complete, and up-to-dated survey about the state of the art of homomorphic signature schemes. First, the general framework where homomorphic signatures are defined is described and it is shown how the currently available types of homomorphic signatures, these are the linearly homomorphic signature schemes, the homomorphic schemes supporting polynomial functions, the fully homomorphic signature schemes, and the homomorphic aggregate signature schemes, can then be derived from such a framework. In addition, this work also presents a description of each of the schemes presented so far together with the properties it provides. Furthermore, three use cases, electronic voting, smart grids, and electronic health records, where homomorphic signature schemes can be employed are described. For each of these applications the requirements that a homomorphic signature scheme should fulfill are defined and the suitable schemes already available are listed. This also highlights the shortcomings of current solutions. Thus, this work concludes with several ideas for future research in the direction of homomorphic signature schemes.

Category / Keywords: public-key cryptography / Linearly homomorphic signature schemes, homomorphic signature schemes for polynomial functions, fully homomorphic signature schemes, homomorphic aggregate signature schemes

Date: received 26 Jun 2015

Contact author: gtraverso at cdc informatik tu-darmstadt de

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20150701:064002 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2015/653

Discussion forum: Show discussion | Start new discussion