A first step toward establishing foundations for group signatures was taken by Bellare, Micciancio and Warinschi (Eurocrypt 2003) with a treatment of the case where the group is static. However the bulk of existing practical schemes and applications are for dynamic groups, and these involve important new elements and security issues. This paper treats this case, providing foundations for dynamic group signatures, in the form of a model, strong formal definitions of security, and a construction proven secure under general assumptions. We believe this is an important and useful step because it helps bridge the gap between Bellare Micciancio and Warinschi and the previous practical work, and delivers a basis on which existing practical schemes may in future be evaluated or proven secure.

To date, a group signature construction which is efficient, scalable, allows dynamic adversarial joins, and proven secure in a formal model has not been suggested. In this work we give the first such construction in the random oracle model. The demonstration of an efficient construction proven secure in a formal model that captures all intuitive security properties of a certain primitive is a basic goal in cryptographic design. To this end we adapt a formal model for group signatures capturing all the basic requirements that have been identified as desirable in the area and we construct an efficient scheme and prove its security. Our construction is based on the Strong-RSA assumption (as in the work of Ateniese et al.). In our system, due to the requirements of provable security in a formal model, we give novel constructions as well as innovative extensions of the underlying mathematical requirements and properties. Our task, in fact, requires the investigation of some basic number-theoretic techniques for arguing security over the group of quadratic residues modulo a composite when its factorization is known. Along the way we discover that in the basic construction, anonymity does not depend on factoring-based assumptions, which, in turn, allows the natural separation of user join management and anonymity revocation authorities. Anonymity can, in turn, be shown even against an adversary controlling the join manager.

In this paper I propose a tweakable block cipher construction with a mode of operation that combines counter and chaining methods. Using a single key, the direct application of this mode produces unrepeatable message authentication tags.

This report presents the results from the completed computation of an algorithm introduced by the authors in [11] for evaluating the provable security of the AES (Rijndael) against linear cryptanalysis. This algorithm, later named KMT2, can in fact be applied to any SPN [8]. Preliminary results in [11] were based on 43\% of total computation, estimated at 200,000 hours on our benchmark machine at the time, a Sun Ultra 5. After some delay, we obtained access to the necessary computational resources, and were able to run the algorithm to completion. In addition to the above, this report presents the results from the dual version of our algorithm (KMT2-DC) as applied to the AES.

We propose an index calculus algorithm for the discrete logarithm problem on general abelian varieties. The main difference with the previous approaches is that we do not make use of any embedding into the Jacobian of a well-suited curve. We apply this algorithm to the Weil restriction of elliptic curves and hyperelliptic curves over small degree extension fields. In particular, our attack can solve all elliptic curve discrete logarithm problems defined over $$ in time $$, with a reasonably small constant; and an elliptic problem over $$ or a genus 2 problem over $$ in time $$ with a larger constant.

The most popular public key cryptosystems rely on assumptions from algebraic number theory, e.g., the difficulty of factorisation or the discrete logarithm. The set of problems on which secure public key systems can be based is therefore very small: e.g., a breakthrough in factorisation would make RSA insecure and hence affect our digital economy quite dramatically. This would be the case if quantum-computer with a large number of qbits were available. Therefore, a wider range of candidate hard problems is needed. In 1996, Patarin proposed the ``Hidden Field Equations" (HFE) as a base for public key cryptosystems. In a nutshell, they use polynomials over finite fields of different size to disguise the relationship between the private key and the public key. In these systems, the public key consists of multivariate polynomials over finite fields with up to 256 elements for practical implementations. Over finite fields, solving these equations has been shown to be an NP-complete problem. In addition, empirical results show that this problem is also hard on average, i.e., it can be used for a secure public key signature or encryption scheme. In this article, we outline HFE, and its the variations HFE-, HFEv. Moreover, we describe the signature scheme Quartz, which is based on Hidden Field Equations. In addition, we describe the most recent attacks against HFE and sketch two versions of Quartz which are immune against these attacks.

We present a variant of the Boneh \& Franklin Identiy-based Encryption {\sc ibe} scheme to derive an authenticated symmetric key-exchange protocol, when combined with a signature scheme. Our protocol uses {\sc ibe} as a secure channel to establish a symmetric key between two users and, after that, further communication can be done by symmetric cryptography, much faster than pairing-based cryptography.

It is already known that the Weil and Tate pairings can be used to solve many decision-Diffie-Hellman (DDH) problems on elliptic curves. A natural question is whether all DDH problems are easy on supersingular curves. To answer this question it is necessary to have suitable distortion maps. Verheul states that such maps exist, and this paper gives methods to construct them. The paper therefore shows that all DDH problems on supersingular elliptic curves are easy. We also discuss the issue of which DDH problems on ordinary curves are easy. A related contribution is a discussion of distortion maps which are not isomorphisms. We give explicit distortion maps for elliptic curves with complex multiplication of discriminants $$ and $$.

In~\cite{B02} it was proved that 20 out of 64 PGV-hash functions~\cite{P94} based on block cipher are collision resistant and one-way-secure in black-box model of the underlying block cipher. Here, we generalize the definition of PGV-hash function into a hash family and we will prove that besides the previous 20 hash functions we have 22 more collision resistant and one-way secure hash families. As all these 42 families are keyed hash family, these become target collision resistant also. All these 42 hash families have tight upper and lower bounds on (target) collision resistant and one-way-ness.

This paper describes the synthesis of Dynamic Differential Logic to increase the resistance of FPGA implementations against Differential Power Analysis. The synthesis procedure is developed and a detailed description is given of how EDA tools should be used appropriately to implement a secure digital design flow. Compared with an existing technique to implement Dynamic Differential Logic on FPGA, the technique saves a factor 2 in slice utilization. Experimental results also indicate that a secure version of the AES encryption algorithm can now be implemented with a mere 50% increase in time delay and 90% increase in slice utilization when compared with a normal non-secure single ended implementation.

Charge Recycling Sense Amplifier Based Logic is presented. This logic is derived from Sense Amplifier Based Logic, which is a logic style with signal independent power consumption that is capable to protect security devices such as Smart Cards against power attacks. Experimental results show that utilization of advanced circuit techniques save 20% in power consumption and 63% in peak supply current and that the logic style preserves the energy masking behavior.

We present a dynamic and differential CMOS logic style, which has a signal independent switching behavior. It is shown that during each clock cycle, power consumption and all circuit characteristics, such as leakage current, instantaneous current and input-output delay are identical and independent of the logic value and the sequence of the input data. Implementing the encryption module in this logic will protect it against any Side Channel Attack that takes advantage of power, timing and leakage information. We have built a set of logic gates and a flip-flop needed for cryptographic functions and implemented a larger module, for which area, total power consumption and variation on the power consumption have been compared with implementations in Static Complementary CMOS logic, genuine Dynamic and Differential Logic and Current Mode Logic.

In this paper we propose three refinements to Miller's algorithm for computing Weil/Tate Pairing.The first one is an overall improvement and achieves its optimal behavior if the binary expansion of the involved integer has more zeros. If more ones are presented in the binary expansion, second improvement is suggested. The third one is especially efficient in the case base three. We also have some performance analysis.

The bilinear pairing such as Weil pairing or Tate pairing on elliptic and hyperelliptic curves have recently been found applications in design of cryptographic protocols. In this survey, we have tried to cover different cryptographic protocols based on bilinear pairings which possess, to the best of our knowledge, proper security proofs in the existing security models.

We propose a one-round $$-out-of-$$ computationally-private information retrieval protocol for $$-bit strings with low-degree polylogarithmic receiver-computation, linear sender-computation and communication $$, where $$ is a possibly non-constant security parameter. The new protocol is receiver-private if the underlying length-flexible additively homomorphic public-key cryptosystem is IND-CPA secure. It can be transformed to a one-round computationally receiver-private and information-theoretically sender-private $$-out-of-$$ oblivious-transfer protocol for $$-bit strings, that has the same asymptotic communication and is private in the standard complexity-theoretic model.

Fix a small, non-empty set of blockcipher keys K. We say a blockcipher-based hash function is "highly-efficient" if it makes exactly one blockcipher call for each message block hashed, and all blockcipher calls use a key from K. Although a few highly-efficient constructions have been proposed, no one has been able to prove their security. In this paper we prove, in the ideal-cipher model, that it is impossible to construct a highly-efficient iterated blockcipher-based hash function that is provably secure. Our result implies, in particular, that the Tweakable Chain Hash (TCH) construction suggested by Liskov, Rivest, and Wagner is not correct under an instantiation suggested for this construction, nor can TCH be correctly instantiated by any other efficient means.

We herein discuss two modes of attack on multivariate public-key cryptosystems. A 2000 Goubin-Courtois article applied these techniques against a special class of multivariate PKC's called ``Triangular-Plus-Minus'' (TPM), and may explain in part the present dearth of research on ``true'' multivariates -- multivariate PKC's in which the middle map is not really taken in a much larger field. These attacks operate by finding linear combinations of matrices with a given rank. Indeed, we can describe the two attacks very aptly as ``high-rank'' and ``low-rank''. However, TPM was not general enough to cover all pertinent true multivariate PKC's. \emph{Tame-like} PKC's, multivariates with relatively few terms per equation in the central map and an easy inverse, is a superset of TPM that can enjoy both fast private maps and short set-up times. However, inattention can still let rank attacks succeed in tame-like PKCs. The TTS (Tame Transformation Signatures) family of digital signature schemes lies at this cusp of contention. Previous TTS instances (proposed at ICISC '03) claim good resistance to other known attacks. But we show how careless construction in current TTS instances (TTS/4 and TTS/$$) exacerbates the security concern of rank, and show two different cryptanalysis in under $$ AES units. TTS is not the only tame-like PKC with these liabilities -- they are shared by a few other misconstructed schemes. A suitable equilibrium between speed and security must be struck. We suggest a generic way to craft tame-like PKC's more resistant to rank attacks. A demonstrative TTS variant with similar dimensions is built for which rank attack takes $$ AES units, while remaining very fast and as resistant to other attacks. The proposed TTS variants can scale up. In short: We show that rank attacks apply to the wider class of tame-like PKC's, sometimes even better than previously described. However, this is relativized by the realization that we can build adequately resistant tame-like multivariate PKC's, so the general theme still seem viable compared to more traditional or large-field multivariate alternatives.

Informally, an obfuscator $$ is an efficient, probabilistic ``compiler'' that transforms a program $$ into a new program $$ with the same functionality as $$, but such that $$ protects any secrets that may be built into and used by $$. Program obfuscation, if possible, would have numerous important cryptographic applications, including: (1) ``Intellectual property'' protection of secret algorithms and keys in software, (2) Solving the long-standing open problem of homomorphic public-key encryption, (3) Controlled delegation of authority and access, (4) Transforming Private-Key Encryption into Public-Key Encryption, and (5) Access Control Systems. Unfortunately however, program obfuscators that work on arbitrary programs cannot exist [Barak et al]. No positive results for program obfuscation were known prior to this work. In this paper, we provide the first positive results in program obfuscation. We focus on the goal of access control, and give several provable obfuscations for complex access control functionalities, in the random oracle model. Our results are obtained through non-trivial compositions of obfuscations; we note that general composition of obfuscations is impossible, and so developing techniques for composing obfuscations is an important goal. Our work can also be seen as making initial progress toward the goal of obfuscating finite automata or regular expressions, an important general class of machines which are not ruled out by the impossibility results of Barak et al. We also note that our work provides the first formal proof techniques for obfuscation, which we expect to be useful in future work in this area.

Recently we solved the long-standing open problem of justifying a Dolev-Yao type model of cryptography as used in virtually all automated protocol provers under active attacks. The justification was done by defining an ideal system handling Dolev-Yao-style terms and a cryptographic realization with the same user interface, and by showing that the realization is as secure as the ideal system in the sense of reactive simulatability. This definition encompasses arbitrary active attacks and enjoys general composition and property-preservation properties. Security holds in the standard model of cryptography and under standard assumptions of adaptively secure primitives. A major primitive missing in that library so far is symmetric encryption. We show why symmetric encryption is harder to idealize in a way that allows general composition than existing primitives in this library. We discuss several approaches to overcome these problems. For our favorite approach we provide a detailed provably secure idealization of symmetric encryption within the given framework for constructing nested terms.

In their seminal paper, Miyaji, Nakabayashi and Takano~\cite{miyaji-nakabayashi-takano} describe a simple method for the creation of elliptic curves of prime order with embedding degree 3, 4, or 6. Such curves are important for the realisation of pairing-based cryptosystems on ordinary (non-supersingular) elliptic curves. We provide an alternative derivation of their results, and extend them to allow for the generation of many more suitable curves.

In this paper we study the long standing problem of information extraction from multiple linear approximations. We develop a formal statistical framework for block cipher attacks based on this technique and derive explicit and compact gain formulas for generalized versions of Matsui's Algorithm 1 and Algorithm 2. The theoretical framework allows both approaches to be treated in a unified way, and predicts significantly improved attack complexities compared to current linear attacks using a single approximation. In order to substantiate the theoretical claims, we benchmarked the attacks against reduced-round versions of DES and observed a clear reduction of the data and time complexities, in almost perfect correspondence with the predictions. The complexities are reduced by several orders of magnitude for Algorithm 1, and the significant improvement in the case of Algorithm 2 suggests that this approach may outperform the currently best attacks on the full DES algorithm.

In this paper we introduce a new way to represent elements of a finite field of characteristic $$. We describe a new type of polynomial basis, called {\it redundant trinomial basis} and discuss how to implement it efficiently. Redundant trinomial bases are well suited to build $$ when no irreducible trinomial of degree $$ exists. Tests with {\tt NTL} show that improvements for squaring and exponentiation are respectively up to $$\% and $$\%. More attention is given to relevant extension degrees for doing elliptic and hyperelliptic curve cryptography. For this range, a scalar multiplication can be speeded up by a factor up to $$\%.

In a (t, n) proxy signature scheme, the original signer can delegate his/her signing capability to n proxy signers such that any t or more proxy singers can sign messages on behalf of the former, but t-1 or less of them cannot do the same thing. Such schemes have been suggested for use in a number of applications, particularly in distributed computing where delegation of rights is quite common. Based on the RSA cryptosystem, Hwang et al. recently proposed an efficient (t, n) threshold proxy signature scheme. In this paper we identify several security weaknesses in their scheme and show that their scheme is insecure.

Committed Oblivious Transfer (COT) is a useful cryptographic primitive that combines the functionalities of bit commitment and oblivious transfer. In this paper, we introduce an extended version of COT (ECOT) which additionally allows proofs of relations among committed bits, and we construct an efficient protocol that securely realizes an ECOT functionality in the universal-composability (UC) framework in the common reference string (CRS) model. Our construction is more efficient than previous (non-UC) constructions of COT, involving only a constant number of exponentiations and communication rounds. Using the ECOT functionality as a building block, we construct efficient UC protocols for general two-party and multi-party functionalities (in the CRS model), each gate requiring a constant number of ECOT's.

For the last two decades the notion and implementations of proxy signatures have been used to allow transfer of digital signing power within some context (in order to enable flexibility of signers within organizations and among entities). On the other hand, various notions of the key-evolving signature paradigms (forward-secure, key-insulated, and intrusion-resilient signatures) have been suggested in the last few years for protecting the security of signature schemes, localizing the damage of secret key exposure. In this work we relate the various notions via direct and concrete security reductions that are tight. We start by developing the first formal model for fully hierarchical proxy signatures, which, as we point out, also addresses vulnerabilities of previous schemes when self-delegation is used. Next, we prove that proxy signatures are, in fact, equivalent to key-insulated signatures. We then use this fact and other results to establish a tight hierarchy among the key-evolving notions, showing that intrusion-resilient signatures and key-insulated signatures are equivalent, and imply forward-secure signatures. We also introduce other relations among extended notions. Besides the importance of understanding the relationships among the various notions that were originally designed with different goals or with different system configuration in mind, our findings imply new designs of schemes. For example, many proxy signatures have been presented without formal model and proofs, whereas using our results we can employ the work on key-insulated schemes to suggest new provably secure designs of proxy signatures schemes.

We consider the following problem: a user \U\ wants to store his files in an encrypted form on a remote file server \FS. Later the user \U\ wants to efficiently retrieve some of the encrypted files containing (or indexed by) specific keywords, keeping the keywords themselves secret and not jeopardizing the security of the remotely stored files. For example, a user may want to store old e-mail messages encrypted on a server managed by Yahoo or another large vendor, and later retrieve certain messages while traveling with a mobile device. In this paper, we offer solutions for this problem under well-defined security requirements. Our schemes are efficient in the sense that no public-key cryptosystem is involved. Indeed, our approach is independent of the encryption method chosen for the remote files. They are also incremental, in that \U\ can submit new files which are totally secure against previous queries but still searchable against future queries.

In 1988, Harn, Laih and Huang proposed a password authentication scheme based on quadratic residues. However, in 1995, Chang, Wu and Laih pointed out that if the parameters d b a , , and l are known by the intruder, this scheme can be broken. In this paper, we presented another attack on the Harn-Laih-Huang scheme. In our attack, it doesn’t need to know the parameters and it is more efficient than the Chang-Wu-Laih attack.

Side-channel analysis has been recognized for several years as a practical and powerful means to reveal secret keys of [publicly known] cryptographic algorithms. Only very recently this kind of cryptanalysis has been applied to reverse engineer a non-trivial part of the specification of a proprietary (i.e., secret) algorithm. The target here is no longer the value of secret key but the secret specifications of the cryptographic algorithm itself. In a recent paper, Roman Novak (2003) describes how to recover the value of one (out of two) substitution table of a secret instance of the A3/A8 algorithm, the GSM authentication and session-key generation algorithm. His attack presents however two drawbacks from a practical viewpoint. First, in order to retrieve one substitution table ($$), the attacker must know the value of the other substitution table ($$). Second, the attacker must also know the value of secret key $$. In this paper, we improve Novak's attack and show how to retrieve \emph{both} substitution tables ($$ and $$) \emph{without any prior knowledge about the secret key}. Furthermore, as a side-effect, we also recover the value of the secret key. With this contribution, we intend to present a practical SCARE (Side Channel Analysis for Reverse Engineering) attack, anticipate a growing interest for this new area of side-channel signal exploitation, and remind, if needed, that security cannot be achieved through obscurity alone.

Tail-MAC, A predecessor to the VMPC-MAC, algorithm for computing Message Authentication Codes for stream ciphers is described along with the analysis of its security. The proposed algorithm was designed to employ some of the data already computed by the underlying stream cipher in the purpose of minimizing the computational cost of the operations required by the MAC algorithm. The performed analyses indicate several problems with the security of the scheme and lead to a new design which described in a paper "VMPC-MAC: A Stream Cipher Based Authenticated Encryption Scheme". The new scheme solves all the problems found at a cost of some compromise in the performance.

This paper considers a weak variant on the notion of zero-knowledge. The weak notion is compatible with the chosen ciphertext security. In fact, arguments of knowledge based on IND-CCA encryption schemes are shown to be statistical zero-knowledge in that sense.

We introduce a new public-key cryptosystem with tractable rational maps. As an application of abstract algebra and algebraic geometry to cryptography, TRMC (Tractable Rational Map Cryptosystem) has many superior properties including high complexity, easy implementation and very fast execution. We describe the principles and implementation of TRMC and analyze its properties. Also, we give a brief account of security analysis.

In the setting of concurrent self composition, a single protocol is executed many times concurrently by a single set of parties. In this paper, we prove lower bounds and impossibility results for secure protocols in this setting. First and foremost, we prove that there exist large classes of functionalities that {\em cannot} be securely computed under concurrent self composition, by any protocol. We also prove a {\em communication complexity} lower bound on protocols that securely compute a large class of functionalities in this setting. Specifically, we show that any protocol that computes a functionality from this class and remains secure for $$ concurrent executions, must have bandwidth of at least $$ bits. The above results are unconditional and hold for any type of simulation (i.e., even for non-black-box simulation). In addition, we prove a severe lower bound on protocols that are proven secure using black-box simulation. Specifically, we show that any protocol that computes the blind signature or oblivious transfer functionalities and remains secure for $$ concurrent executions, where security is proven via {\em black-box simulation}, must have at least $$ rounds of communication. Our results hold for the plain model, where no trusted setup phase is assumed. While proving our impossibility results, we also show that for many functionalities, security under concurrent {\em self} composition (where a single secure protocol is run many times) is actually equivalent to the seemingly more stringent requirement of security under concurrent {\em general} composition (where a secure protocol is run concurrently with other arbitrary protocols). This observation has significance beyond the impossibility results that are derived by it for concurrent self composition.

Transitive signature, motivated by signing vertices and edges of a dynamically growing, transitively closed graph, was first proposed by Micali and Rivest. The general designing paradigm proposed there involved a underlying standard signature scheme, which is required to be existentially unforgeable against adaptive chosen message attacks. We show that the requirement for the underlying signature is not necessarily so strong, instead non-adaptive security is enough to guarantee the transitive signature scheme secure in the strongest sense, i.e, transitively unforgeable under adaptive chosen message attack (defined by Bellare and Neven). We give a general proof of such transitive signature schemes, and also propose a specific transitive signature scheme based on factoring and strong-RSA. Hence the choice of standard signatures that can be employed by transitive signature schemes is enlarged. The efficiency of transitive signature schemes may be improved since efficiency and security are trade-off parameters for standard signature schemes.

Sequences with almost perfect linear complexity profile are defined by H.~Niederreiter[4]. C.P. Xing and K.Y. Lam[5, 6] extended this concept from the case of single sequences to the case of multi-sequences and furthermore proposed the concept of d-perfect. In this paper, based on the technique of m-continued fractions due to Dai et al, we investigate the property of d-perfect multi-sequences and obtain the sufficient and necessary condition on d-perfect property. We show that multi-sequences with d-perfect property are not always strongly d-perfect. In particular, we give one example to disprove the conjecture on d-perfect property of multi-sequences proposed by C.P. Xing in [6].

We present an algebraic cryptanalysis of Bresson, et al.'s spontaneous anonymous threshold signature for ad hoc groups. The technique is to reduce a degenerate condition in Lagrange interpolation to an algebraically solvable high-density knapsack problem over $$. We repair their protocol by revisiting and updating Cramer, et al.'s result on spontaneous anonymous threshold proof-of-knowledge (partial proof-of-knowledge). We generalize their proof by removing two assumptions, and reduce its security to a new candidate hard problem, PoK-Collision, in the random oracle model. To add to the urgency of our update, we present major versions of major PoK schemes that do not satisfy their special soundness assumption.

In this paper we propose a very efficient two-round k-out-of-n oblivious transfer scheme, in which R sends O(k) messages to S, and S sends O(n) messages back to R. The computation cost of R and S is reasonable as R needs O(k) operations and S needs O(n)operations. The choices of R are unconditionally secure and the secrecy of unchosen messages is guaranteed as well if the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman problem is hard. When k=1, our scheme is as efficient as the most efficient 1-out-of-n oblivious transfer scheme up to now. Our scheme has the nice property of universal parameters. That is, each pair of R and S need neither hold any secret key nor perform any prior setup. The system parameters can be used by all senders and receivers without any trapdoor specification. Our k-out-of-n oblivious transfer scheme is the most efficient one in terms of the communication cost, in both rounds and the number of messages. Moreover, our scheme can be extended in a straightforward way to an adaptive k-out-of-n oblivious transfer scheme, which allows the receiver R to choose the secrets one by one adaptively. In our scheme, S sends O(n) messages to R in one round in the commitment phase. For each query of R, only O(1) messages are exchanged and O(1) operations (in elliptic curves) are performed. In fact, the number k of queries need not be pre-fixed or known beforehand. This makes our scheme highly flexible.

Recently, J.-J. Shen, C.-W. Lin and M.-S. Hwang (Computers & Security, Vol 22, No 7, pp 591-595, 2003) proposed a modified Yang-Shieh scheme to enhance security. They claimed that their modified scheme can withstand the forged login attack and also provide a mutual authentication method to prevent the forged server attack. In this paper, we show that the Shen-Lin-Hwang scheme cannot resist the forged login attack either. The intruder is able to forge a valid forge request of a legitimate user Ui and then successfully impersonate him by intercepting a login request sent by Ui and registering a smart card.

We present an adaptive chosen-plaintext cryptanalysis of Boneh, et al.'s bilinear spontaneous anonymous ad hoc group signature. Then we present a patch, and an extension to a threshold version complete with a security proof in the random oracle model (ROM).

Chameleon signatures are based on well established hash-and-sign paradigm, where a \emph{chameleon hash function} is used to compute the cryptographic message digest. Chameleon signatures simultaneously provide the properties of non-repudiation and non-transferability for the signed message, $$ the designated recipient is capable of verifying the validity of the signature, but cannot disclose the contents of the signed information to convince any third party without the signer's consent. One disadvantage of the initial chameleon signature scheme is that signature forgery results in the signer recovering the recipient's trapdoor information, $$ private key. Therefore, the signer can use this information to deny \emph{other} signatures given to the recipient. This creates a strong disincentive for the recipient to forge signatures, partially undermining the concept of non-transferability. In this paper, we firstly propose a chameleon hashing scheme in the gap Diffie-Hellman group to solve the problem of key exposure. We can prove that the recipient's trapdoor information will never be compromised under the assumption of Computation Diffie-Hellman Problem (CDHP) is intractable. Moreover, we use the proposed chameleon hashing scheme to design a chameleon signature scheme.

A secure scheme of restrictive partially blind signature was presented. The proposed scheme has several advantages over the previous scheme: 1. The scheme is provable secure against the one-more signature forgery under the adaptively parallel attack. 2. The issued signatures can be of polynomial number whereas the previous work allows only logarithmic number. 3. The scheme is more efficient than previous scheme in both communicational and computational complexities.

In this paper, we study the problem of single database private information retrieval, and present schemes with only logarithmic server-side communication complexity. Previously the best result could only achieve polylogarithmic communication, and was based on certain less well-studied assumptions in number theory \cite{CMS99}. On the contrary, our construction is based on Paillier's cryptosystem \cite{P99}, which along with its variants have drawn extensive studies in recent cryptographic researches \cite{PP99,G00,CGGN01,DJ01,CGG02,CNS02,ST02,GMMV03,KT03}, and have many important applications (e.g., the Cramer-Shoup CCA2 encryption scheme in the standard model \cite{CS02}). Actually, our schemes can be directly used to implement $$-out-of-$$ {\em $$-bit string} oblivious transfer with $$ sender-side communication complexity (against semi-honest receivers and malicious senders). Note the sender-side communication complexity is independent of $$, the constant hidden in the big-$$ notation is in fact small, and $$ is unrestricted. Moreover, We also show a way to do communication balancing between the sender-side and the receiver-side. In addition, we show how to handle malicious receivers with small communication overheads, which itself is a non-trivial result.

We consider basic notions of security for cryptographic hash functions: collision resistance, preimage resistance, and second-preimage resistance. We give seven different definitions that correspond to these three underlying ideas, and then we work out all of the implications and separations among these seven definitions within the concrete-security, provable-security framework. Because our results are concrete, we can show two types of implications, "conventional" and "provisional", where the strength of the latter depends on the amount of compression achieved by the hash function. We also distinguish two types of separations, "conditional" and "unconditional". When constructing counterexamples for our separations, we are careful to preserve specified hash-function domains and ranges; this rules out some pathological counterexamples and makes the separations more meaningful in practice. Four of our definitions are standard while three appear to be new; some of our relations and separations have appeared, others have not. Here we give a modern treatment that acts to catalog, in one place and with carefully-considered nomenclature, the most basic security notions for cryptographic hash functions.

Every integer n > 0 º N defines an increasing monotonic series of integers: n1, n2, ...nk, such that nk = nk +k(k-1)/2. We define as s(m) the number of such series that an integer m belongs to. We prove that there are infinite number of integers with s=1, all of the form 2^t (they belong only to the series that they generate, not to any series generated by a smaller integer). We designate them as s-prime integers. All integers with a factor other than 2 are not s-prime (s>1), but are s-composite. However, the arithmetic s function shows great variability, lack of apparent pattern, and it is conjectured that s(n) is unbound. Two integers, n and m, are defined as s-congruent if they have a common s-series. Every arithmetic equation can be seen as an expression without explicit unknowns -- provided every integer variable can be replaced by any s-congruent number. To validate the equation one must find a proper match of such members. This defines a special arithmetic, which appears well disposed towards certain cryptographic applications.

We investigate efficient protocols for password-authenticated key exchange based on the RSA public-key cryptosystem. To date, most of the published protocols for password-authenticated key exchange were based on Diffie-Hellman key exchange. It appears inappropriate to design password-authenticated key exchange protocols using RSA and other public-key cryptographic techniques. In fact, many of the proposed protocols for password-authenticated key exchange based on RSA have been shown to be insecure; the only one that remains secure is the SNAPI protocol. Unfortunately, the SNAPI protocol has to use a prime public exponent $$ larger than the RSA modulus $$. In this paper, we present a new password-authenticated key exchange protocol, called {\em PEKEP}, which allows using both large and small prime numbers as RSA public exponents. Based on number-theoretic techniques, we show that the new protocol is secure against the $$-{\em residue attack}, a special type of off-line dictionary attack against RSA-based password-authenticated key exchange protocols. We also provide a formal security analysis of PEKEP under the RSA assumption and the random oracle model. On the basis of PEKEP, we present a computationally-efficient key exchange protocol to mitigate the burden on communication entities.

Pairing-based cryptosystems rely on bilinear non-degenerate maps called pairings, such as the Tate and Weil pairings defined over certain elliptic curve groups. In this paper we show how to compress pairing values, how to couple this technique with that of point compression, and how to benefit from the compressed representation to speed up exponentiations involving pairing values, as required in many pairing based protocols.

The aim of the paper is the construction of the index calculus algorithm for the discrete logarithm problem on elliptic curves. The construction presented here is based on the problem of finding bounded solutions to some explicit modular multivariate polynomial equations. These equations arise from the elliptic curve summation polynomials introduced here and may be computed easily. Roughly speaking, we show that given the algorithm for solving such equations, which works in polynomial or low exponential time in the size of the input, one finds discrete logarithms faster than by means of Pollard's methods.

Hyperelliptic curve cryptography recently received a lot of attention, especially for constrained environments. Since there space is critical, compression techniques are interesting. In this note we propose a new method which avoids factoring the first representing polynomial. In the case of genus two the cost for decompression is, essentially, computing two square roots in $$, the cost for compression is much less.

Hardware accelerators are often used in cryptographic applications for speeding up the highly arithmetic-intensive public-key primitives, e.g. in high-end smart cards. One of these emerging and very promising public-key scheme is based on HyperElliptic Curve Cryptosystems (HECC). In the open literature only a few considerations deal with hardware implementation issues of HECC. Our contribution appears to be the first one to propose architectures for the latest findings in efficient group arithmetic on HEC. The group operation of HECC allows parallelization at different levels: bit-level parallelization (via different digit-sizes in multipliers) and arithmetic operation-level parallelization (via replicated multipliers). We investigate the trade-offs between both parallelization options and identify speed and time-area optimized configurations. We found that a coprocessor using a single multiplier (D = 8) instead of two or more is best suited. This coprocessor is able to compute group addition and doubling in 479 and 334 clock cycles, respectively. Providing more resources it is possible to achieve 288 and 248 clock cycles, respectively.

In a verifiable encryption, an asymmetrically encrypted ciphertext can be publicly verified to be decipherable by a designated receiver while maintaining the semantic security of the message \cite{AsokanShWa98,CamenischDa00,CamenischSh03}. In this paper, we introduce {\em Custodian-Hiding Verifiable Encryption}, where it can be publicly verified that there exists at least one custodian (user), out of a designated group of $$ custodians (users), who can decrypt the message, while the semantic security of the message and the anonymity of the actual decryptor are maintained. Our scheme is proven secure in the random oracle model. We also introduce two extensions to decryption by a subset of more than one user.

We present a linkable spontaneously anonymous group (LSAG) signature scheme (alternatively known as linkable ring signature scheme) satisfying the following three properties. (1) Anonymity, or signer indistinguishability. (2) Linkability: That two signatures by the same signer can be linked. (3) Spontaneity: No group secret, therefore no group manager or group secret sharing setup. We reduce the security of our scheme to well-known problems under the random oracle model. Using the scheme, we construct a new efficient one-round e-voting system which does not have a registration phase. We also present a new efficient reduction of famous rewind simulation lemma which only relies on elementary probability theory. Threshold extensions of our scheme are also presented.

In this paper we show how to combine the design concepts of the SQUARE and CS block ciphers to produce a pseudo-random permutation CSQUARE suitable for use in block cipher and hash design with a very high multi-round trail weight. The new design inherits the hardware efficiency of the SQUARE linear transform pattern as well as the efficiency of the fast pseudo-Hadamard transform over a finite field. We demonstrate the DMWT hash function which makes use of our new results.

To ensure the security of software executing on malicious hosts, as in digital rights management (DRM) applications, it is desirable to encrypt or decrypt content using white-box encoded cryptographic algorithms in the manner of Chow et al. Such encoded algorithms must run on an adversary’s machine without revealing the private key information used, despite the adversary’s ability to observe and manipulate the running algorithm. We have implemented obfuscated (white-box) DES and 3DES algorithms along the lines of Chow et al., with alterations that improve the security of the key, eliminating attacks that extract the key from Chow et al.’s obfuscated DES. Our system is secure against two previously published attacks on Chow et al.’s system, as well as a new adaptation of a statistical bucketing attack on their system. During implementation of white-box DES we found that a number of optimizations were needed for practical generation and execution. On a typical laptop we can generate obfuscated DES functions in a Lisp environment in under a minute allocating 11 MB, including the space required for the resulting function. The resulting function occupies 4.5 MB and encrypts or decrypts each block in approximately 30 ms on an 800 MHz G4 processor; slight run-time performance of the obfuscated DES could be traded to further reduce our algorithm’s representation to 2.3 MB. Although it is over an order of magnitude slower than typical DES systems, we believe it is fast enough for application to some DRM problems.

Exponentiation in finite fields of characteristic 2 is proposed to construct large bijective S-boxes of block ciphers. We obtain some properties of the exponential S-boxes that are related to differential, higher order differential, and linear cryptanalysis methods.

As of today no solely software-based solution that a priori protects the computation of any mobile code and/or mobile agent was presented. Furthermore, Algesheimer et al. [1], argue that minimal trust in a third party is essential for the protection of mobile entities. This paper shows that under very mild assumptions, there exists a software-only based solution that can protect any computation of mobile entities in polynomial time bound systems, and without relaying on the minimal trust requirement. A novel Remote Distributed Scheme, called RDS, is described. RDS is based on fault-tolerant and modest cryptographic techniques and supports an a priori protection of any mobile computation that is carried in an honest-but-curious environment (“trusted entities”). We next show, by using on probabilistic techniques, that RDS provides an a priori protection for any mobile computation, in any environment, and for any required level of secrecy. We also prove that RDS equivalents, and by thus, provides the same level of protection that is supports by the traditional client/server scheme.

It is often necessary for two or more or more parties that do not fully trust each other to selectively share data. We propose a search scheme based on Bloom filters and Pohlig-Hellman encryption. A semi-trusted third party can transform one party's search queries to a form suitable for querying the other party's database, in such a way that neither the third party nor the database owner can see the original query. Furthermore, the encryption keys used to construct the Bloom filters are not shared with this third party. Provision can be made for third-party ``warrant servers'', as well as ``censorship sets'' that limit the data to be shared.

The 9/11 tragedy triggered an increased interest in biometric passports. According to several sources \cite{sp2}, the electronic ID market is expected to increase by more than 50\% {\sl per annum} over the three coming years, excluding China. \smallskip To cost-effectively address this foreseen explosion, a very inexpensive memory card (phonecard-like card) capable of performing fingerprint matching is paramount.\smallskip This paper presents such a solution. The proposed protocol is based on the following idea: the card stores the user's fingerprint information to which random minutiae were added at enrolment time (we denote this scrambled template by $$). The card also stores a binary string $$ encoding which of the minutiae in $$ actually belong to the holder. When an identification session starts, the terminal reads $$ from the card and, based upon the incoming scanner data, determines which of the minutiae in $$ are genuine. The terminal forms a candidate $$ and sends it to the card. All the card needs to do is test that the Hamming weight of $$ is smaller than a security threshold $$. \smallskip It follows that the card only needs to embark passive data storage capabilities, one exclusive-or gate, a shift register, a counter and a comparator (less than 40 logical gates).

We build several highly-practical and optimized signcryption constructions directly from trapdoor permutations, in the random oracle model. All our constructions share features such as simplicity, efficiency, generality, near-optimal exact security, flexible and ad-hoc key management, key reuse for sending/receiving data, optimally-low message expansion, "backward" use for plain signature/encryption, long message and associated data support, the strongest-known qualitative security (so-called IND-CCA and sUF-CMA) and, finally, complete compatibility with the PKCS#1 infrastructure. While some of these features are present in previous works to various extents, we believe that our schemes improve on earlier proposals in at least several dimensions, making the overall difference quite noticeable in practice. Concretely, we present three methods generally based on what we call Parallel, Sequential, and eXtended sequential Padding schemes (P-Pad, S-Pad, X-Pad). P-Pad offers parallel "signing" and "encrypting", optimal exact security, and minimum ciphertext length twice as long as the length of a TDP , while still maintaining optimal bandwidth. S-Pad loses parallelism and some exact security, but has minimal ciphertext length equal to that of a TDP. Any S-Pad can also be used as a "universal padding" scheme. X-Pad is similar to S-Pad, but regains optimal exact security at the expense of a marginally-longer minimum ciphertext length. Moreover, to unify various padding options, we construct a single versatile padding scheme PSEP (Probabilistic Signature-Encryption Padding) which, by simply adjusting the lengths of the parameters, can work optimally as either a P-Pad, S-Pad or X-Pad.

This paper analyses the 3GPP confidentiality and integrity schemes adopted by Universal Mobile Telecommunication System, an emerging standard for third generation wireless communications. The schemes, known as $$ and $$, are based on the block cipher KASUMI. Although previous works claim security proofs for $$ and $$, where $$ is a generalized versions of $$, it was recently shown that these proofs are incorrect. Moreover, Iwata and Kurosawa (2003) showed that it is \emph{impossible} to prove $$ and $$ secure under the standard PRP assumption on the underlying block cipher. We address this issue here, showing that it is possible to prove $$ and $$ secure if we make the assumption that the underlying block cipher is a secure PRP-RKA against a certain class of related-key attacks; here $$ is a generalized version of $$. Our results clarify the assumptions necessary in order for $$ and $$ to be secure and, since no related-key attacks are known against the full eight rounds of KASUMI, lead us to believe that the confidentiality and integrity mechanisms used in real 3GPP applications are secure.

It is well known that the NIST statistical test suite was used for the evaluation of AES candidate algorithms. We have found that the test setting of Discrete Fourier Transform test and Lempel-Ziv test of this test suite are wrong. We give four corrections of mistakes in the test settings. This suggests that re-evaluation of the test results should be needed.

In a paper recently published in the ACM Operating Systems Review, Kim, Lee and Yoo \cite{kim-lee-yoo} describe two ID-based password authentication schemes for logging onto a remote network server using smart cards, passwords and fingerprints. Various claims are made regarding the security of the schemes, but no proof is offered. Here we show how a passive eavesdropper, without access to any smart card, password or fingerprint, and after passively eavesdropping only one legitimate log-on, can subsequently log-on to the server claiming any identity.

This work develops a composable notion of security in a synchronous communication network to analyze cryptographic primitives and protocols in a reliable network with guaranteed delivery. In such a synchronous model the abort of protocols must be handled explicitly. It is shown that a version of *global bit commitment* which allows to identify parties that did not give proper input cannot be securely realized with the primitives *oblivious transfer* and *broadcast*. This proves that the primitives oblivious transfer and broadcast are not complete in our synchronous model of security. In the synchronous model presented ideal functionalities as well as parties can be equipped with a ``shell'' which can delay communication until the adversary allows delivery or the number of rounds since the shell received the message exceeds a specified threshold. This additionally allows asynchronous specification of ideal functionalities and allows to model a network where messages are not necessarily delivered in the right order. If these latency times are chosen to be infinite the network is no more reliable and becomes completely asynchronous. It is shown that secure protocols in the setting of [Canetti01] or [CLOS02] can be transformed to secure realizations in the new model if latency times are chosen to be infinite.

Given an ordinary elliptic curve on Hesse form over a finite field of characteristic three, we give a sequence of elliptic curves which leads to an effective construction of the canonical lift, and obtain an algorithm for computing the number of points. Our methods are based on the study of an explicitly and naturally given $$-isogeny between elliptic curves on Hesse form.

In this paper we study the additive crosscorrelation spectra between two Boolean functions whose supports are union of certain cosets. These functions on even number of input variables have been introduced by Dillon and we refer to them as Dillon type functions. Our general result shows that the crosscorrelation spectra between any two Dillon type functions are at most $$-valued. As a consequence we find that the crosscorrelation spectra between two Dillon type bent functions on $$-variables are at most $$-valued with maximum possible absolute value at the nonzero points being $$. Moreover, in the same line, the autocorrelation spectra of Dillon type bent functions at different decimations is studied. Further we demonstrate that these results can be used to show the existence of a class of polynomials for which the absolute value of the Weil sum has a sharper upper bound than the Weil bound. Patterson and Wiedemann extended the idea of Dillon for functions on odd number of variables. We study the crosscorrelation spectra between two such functions and then use the results for the calculating the autocorrelation spectra too.

We present a cryptanalysis of a provably secure cryptographic hash function proposed by Augot, Finiasz and Sendrier on eprint. Our attack is a variant of Wagner's generalized birthday attack. It is significantly faster than the attack considered by the authors, and it is practical for two of the three proposed parameters.

At INDOCRYPT 2003 Abisha, Thomas, and Subramanian proposed two public key schemes based on word problems in free partially commutative monoids and groups. We show that both proposals are vulnerable to chosen ciphertext attacks, and thus in the present form must be considered as insecure.

One of the approaches to deliver real-time video encryption is to apply permutations to the bytes within a frame of a fully encoded MPEG stream as presented in [2]. We demonstrate that this particular algorithm is vulnerable to a known-plaintext attack, and hence its use should be carefully considered. We also discuss modifications that can make the algorithm resistant to our attack.

We prove that the fast pseudo-Hadamard transform (FPHT) over a finite field has a bounded branch number. We shall demonstrate that the transform has an efficient implementation for various platforms compared to an equal dimension MDS code. We prove that when using a CS-Cipher\cite{CSC} like construction the weight of any $$ trail is bounded for the case of an $$ transform. We show that the FPHT can also be combined with MDS codes to produce efficient transforms with half of the branch of a comparable sized MDS code. We present the FPHT-HASH one-way hash function which is constructed using a $$ FPHT which produces a $$-bit digest and processes the input at 24 cycles per byte with ISO C source code on an AMD Athlon XP processor.

We study the problem of constructing secure multi-party computation (MPC) protocols that are {\em completely fair} --- meaning that either all the parties learn the output of the function, or nobody does --- even when a majority of the parties are corrupted. We first propose a framework for fair multi-party computation, within which we formulate a definition of secure and fair protocols. The definition follows the standard simulation paradigm, but is modified to allow the protocol to depend on the runing time of the adversary. In this way, we avoid a well-known impossibility result for fair MPC with corrupted majority; in particular, our definition admits constructions that tolerate up to $$ corruptions, where $$ is the total number of parties. Next, we define a ``commit-prove-fair-open'' functionality and construct an efficient protocol that realizes it, using a new variant of a cryptographic primitive known as ``time-lines.'' With this functionality, we show that some of the existing secure MPC protocols can be easily transformed into fair protocols while preserving their security. Putting these results together, we construct efficient, secure MPC protocols that are completely fair even in the presence of corrupted majorities. Furthermore, these protocols remain secure when arbitrarily composed with any protocols, which means, in particular, that they are concurrently-composable and non-malleable. Finally, as an example of our results, we show a very efficient protocol that fairly and securely solves the socialist millionaires' problem.

Hada and Tanaka showed the existence of 3-round, negligible-error zero-knowledge arguments for NP based on a pair of non-standard assumptions, here called KEA1 and KEA2. In this paper we show that KEA2 is false. This renders vacuous the results of Hada and Tanaka. We recover these results, however, under a suitably modified new assumption called KEA3. What we believe is most interesting is that we show that it is possible to ``falsify'' assumptions like KEA2 that, due to their nature and quantifier-structure, do not lend themselves easily to ``efficient falsification'' (Naor).

We present, implement and apply a new privacy primitive that we call ``Traceable Signatures.'' To this end we develop the underlying mathematical and protocol tools, present the concepts and the underlying security model, and then realize the scheme and its security proof. Traceable signatures support an extended set of fairness mechanisms (mechanisms for anonymity management and revocation) when compared with the traditional group signature mechanism. We demonstrate that this extended function is needed for proper operation and adequate level of privacy in various settings and applications. For example, the new notion allows (distributed) tracing of all signatures by a single (misbehaving) party without opening signatures and revealing identities of any other user in the system. In contrast, if such tracing is implemented by a state of the art group signature system, such wide opening of all signatures of a single user is a (centralized) operation that requires the opening of {\em all} anonymous signatures and revealing the users associated with them, an act that violates the privacy of all users. Our work includes a novel modeling of security in privacy systems that leads to simulation-based proofs. Security notions in privacy systems are typically more complex than the traditional security of cryptographic systems, thus our modeling methodology may find future applications in other settings. To allow efficient implementation of our scheme we develop a number of basic tools, zero-knowledge proofs, protocols, and primitives that we use extensively throughout. These novel mechanisms work directly over a group of unknown order, contributing to the efficiency and modularity of our design, and may be of independent interest. The interactive version of our signature scheme yields the notion of ``traceable (anonymous) identification.''

Universally composable protocols (Canetti, FOCS 2000) are cryptographic protocols that remain secure even when run concurrently with arbitrary other protocols. Thus, universally composable protocols can be run in modern networks, like the Internet, and their security is guaranteed. However, the definition of universal composition actually assumes that each execution of the protocol is assigned a unique session identifier, and furthermore, that this identifier is known to all the participating parties. In addition, all universally composable protocols assume that the set of participating parties and the specification of the protocol to be run are a-priori agreed upon and known to all parties. In a decentralized network like the Internet, this setup information must be securely generated by the parties themselves. In this note we formalize the setup problem and show how to securely realize it with a simple and highly efficient protocol.

In this paper, we provide a new approach to study undeniable signatures by translating secure digital signatures to secure undeniable signatures so that the existing algorithms can be used. Our mechanism is that any verifier without trapdoor information cannot distinguish whether a message is encoded from Diffie-Hellamn resource $$ or random resource $$ while a signer with trapdoor information can distinguish efficiently a codeword which is computed from $$ or $$. We show how our mechanism can be efficiently achieved and provide proofs of security for our schemes in the standard complexity model. We also provide evidences to show that our approach can be applied to construct designated confirmer signatures, designated verifier signatures as well.

None

Many modern stream ciphers consist of a keystream generator and a key schedule algorithm. In fielded systems, security of the keystream generator is often based on a large inner state rather than an inherently secure design. Note, however, that little theory on the initialisation of large inner states exists, and many practical designs are based on an ad-hoc approach. As a consequence, an increasing number of attacks on stream ciphers exploit the (re-)initialisation of large inner states by a weak key schedule algorithm. In this paper, we propose a strict separation of keystream generator and key schedule algorithm in stream cipher design. A formal definition of inner state size is given, and lower bounds on the necessary inner state size are proposed. After giving a construction for a secure stream cipher from an insecure keystream generator, the limitations of such an approach are discussed. We introduce the notion of inner state size efficiency and compare it for a number of fielded stream ciphers, indicating that a secure cipher can be based on reasonable inner state sizes. Concluding, we ask a number of open questions that may give rise to a new field of research that is concerned with the security of key schedule algorithms.

Coron et al. proposed the ES-based scheme PSS-ES which realizes an encryption scheme and a signature scheme with a unique padding scheme and key pair. The security of PSS-ES as an encryption scheme is based on the \textit{partial-domain one-wayness} of the encryption permutation. In this paper, we propose new ES schemes OAEP-ES, OAEP++-ES, and REACT-ES, and prove their security under the assumption of \textit{only} the \textit{one-wayness} of encryption permutation. OAEP-ES, OAEP++-ES, and REACT-ES suit practical implementation because they use the same padding technique for encryption and for signature, and their security proof guarantees that we can prepare one key pair to realize encryption and signature in the same way as PSS-ES. Since \textit{one-wayness} is a weaker assumption than \textit{partial-domain one-wayness}, the proposed schemes offer tighter security than PSS-ES. Hence, we conclude that OAEP-ES, OAEP++-ES, and REACT-ES are more effective than PSS-ES. OAEP++-ES is the most practical approach in terms of the tightness of security and communication efficiency.