Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2017/741
Dynamic Searchable Public-Key Ciphertexts with Fast Performance and Practical Security
Peng Xu and Xia Gao and Wei Wang and Willy Susilo and Qianhong Wu and Hai Jin
Abstract: Public-key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) allows a sender to generate keyword-searchable ciphertexts using
a receiver’s public key and upload them to a server. Upon receiving a keyword-search trapdoor from the receiver, the
server finds all matching ciphertexts. Due to the characteristics of public-key encryption, PEKS is inherently suitable
for the application of numerous senders. Hence, PEKS is a well-known method to achieve secure keyword search over
the encrypted email system. However, we find that without a keyword-search trapdoor, the traditional concept of PEKS
still allows the server to have the obvious advantage to distinguish ciphertexts in practice. In other words, the traditional
PEKS cannot guarantee the well-recognized semantic security in practice. To solve this problem, this paper defines a new
concept called dynamic searchable public-key encryption (DSPE). It can hide the relationships between keyword-searchable
ciphertexts and their corresponding encrypted files, and guarantee semantic security in both theory and practice. In addition,
it allows the server to delete the intended ciphertexts according to the receiver’s requirement. Then, we construct a DSPE
instance with provable semantic security in the random oracle model. In terms of performance, the proposed instance also
has the advantage that it only requires sublinear complexity to determine all matching ciphertexts or to delete the intended
ciphertexts. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate the practicability of the instance.
Category / Keywords: cryptographic protocols / Public Key Encryption with Keyword Search
Date: received 1 Aug 2017
Contact author: wsusilo at uow edu au
Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation
Version: 20170807:161407 (All versions of this report)
Short URL: ia.cr/2017/741
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