Remarks on the Cryptographic Primitive of Attribute-based Encryption

Zhengjun Cao; Lihua Liu

Paper 2014/680

Remarks on the Cryptographic Primitive of Attribute-based Encryption

Zhengjun Cao and Lihua Liu

Abstract

Attribute-based encryption (ABE) which allows users to encrypt and decrypt messages based on user attributes is a type of one-to-many encryption. Unlike the conventional one-to-one encryption which has no intention to exclude any partners of the intended receiver from obtaining the plaintext, an ABE system tries to exclude some unintended recipients from obtaining the plaintext whether they are partners of some intended recipients. We remark that this requirement for ABE is very hard to meet. An ABE system cannot truly exclude some unintended recipients from decryption because some users can exchange their decryption keys in order to maximize their own interests. The flaw discounts the importance of the cryptographic primitive.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Foundations
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords: Attribute-based encryption one-to-one encryption one-to-many encryption full obligations partial obligations strong confidentiality weak confidentiality
Contact author(s): liulh @ shmtu edu cn
History: 2014-08-31: received
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2014/680
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2014/680,
      author = {Zhengjun Cao and Lihua Liu},
      title = {Remarks on the Cryptographic Primitive of Attribute-based Encryption},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2014/680},
      year = {2014},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2014/680}
}