Paper 2004/097

How To Re-initialize a Hash Chain

Vipul Goyal

Abstract

Hash Chains are used extensively in various cryptographic systems such as one-time passwords, server supported signatures, secure address resolution, certificate revocation, micropayments etc. However, currently they suffer from the limitation that they have a finite number of links which when exhausted requires the system to be re-initialized. In this paper, we present a new kind of hash chain which we call a Re-initializable Hash Chain (RHC). A RHC has the property that if its links are exhausted, it can be securely re-initialized in a non-repudiable manner to result in another RHC. This process can be continued indefinitely to give rise to an infinite length hash chain, or more precisely, an infinite number of finite length hash chains tied together. Finally we illustrate how a conventional hash chain (CHC) may be profitable replaced with a RHC in cryptographic systems.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Foundations
Publication info
Published elsewhere. Unpublished Note
Keywords
hash chains
Contact author(s)
vipul goyal @ cse04 itbhu org
History
2006-12-30: last of 3 revisions
2004-04-25: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2004/097
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2004/097,
      author = {Vipul Goyal},
      title = {How To Re-initialize a Hash Chain},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2004/097},
      year = {2004},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2004/097}
}
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