Paper 2021/1228

Computational Robust (Fuzzy) Extractors for CRS-dependent Sources with Minimal Min-entropy

Hanwen Feng, The University of Sydney
Qiang Tang, The University of Sydney
Abstract

Robust (fuzzy) extractors are very useful for, e.g., authenticated exchange from shared weak secret and remote biometric authentication against active adversaries. They enable two parties to extract the same uniform randomness with the ``helper'' string. More importantly, they have an authentication mechanism built in that tampering of the ``helper'' string will be detected. Unfortunately, as shown by Dodis and Wichs, in the information-theoretic setting, a robust extractor for an $(n,k)$-source requires $k>n/2$, which is in sharp contrast with randomness extractors which only require $k=\omega(\log n)$. Existing work either relies on random oracles or introduces CRS and works only for CRS-independent sources (even in the computational setting). In this work, we give a systematic study of robust (fuzzy) extractors for general CRS-dependent sources. We show in the information-theoretic setting, the same entropy lower bound holds even in the CRS model; we then show we can have robust extractors in the computational setting for general CRS-dependent source that is only with minimal entropy. At the heart of our construction lies a new primitive called $\kappa$-MAC that is unforgeable with a weak key and hides all partial information about the key (both against auxiliary input), by which we can compile any conventional randomness extractor into a robust one. We further augment $\kappa$-MAC to defend against ``key manipulation" attacks, which yields a robust fuzzy extractor for CRS-dependent sources.

Note: A preliminary version of this paper appeared in TCC 2021. This is the journal version for the Journal of Cryptology.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Foundations
Publication info
Published by the IACR in JOC 2026
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-90453-1_24
Keywords
Robust extractorFuzzy extractorAuthenticated key exchangeMACCRS
Contact author(s)
hanwen feng @ sydney edu au
qiang tang @ sydney edu au
History
2025-11-28: last of 3 revisions
2021-09-20: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2021/1228
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2021/1228,
      author = {Hanwen Feng and Qiang Tang},
      title = {Computational Robust (Fuzzy) Extractors for {CRS}-dependent Sources with Minimal Min-entropy},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2021/1228},
      year = {2021},
      doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-90453-1_24},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/1228}
}
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