Paper 2021/342
N-for-1 Auth: N-wise Decentralized Authentication via One Authentication
Weikeng Chen, Ryan Deng, and Raluca Ada Popa
Abstract
Decentralizing trust is a fundamental principle in the design of end-to-end encryption and cryptocurrency systems. A common issue in these applications is that users possess critical secrets. If these secrets are lost, users can lose precious data or assets. This issue remains a pain point in the adoption of these systems. Existing approaches such as backing up user secrets through a centralized service or distributing them across $N$ mutually distrusting servers to preserve decentralized trust are either introducing a central point of attack or face usability issues by requiring users to authenticate $N$ times, once to each of the $N$ servers. We present N-for-1-Auth, a system that preserves distributed trust by enabling a user to authenticate to $N$ servers independently, with the work of only one authentication, thereby offering the same user experience as in a typical centralized system.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
- Category
- Applications
- Publication info
- Preprint. MINOR revision.
- Keywords
- TLSsecure multiparty computationauthentication
- Contact author(s)
-
weikengchen @ berkeley edu
rdeng2614 @ berkeley edu - History
- 2021-04-19: last of 2 revisions
- 2021-03-17: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2021/342
- License
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CC BY
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2021/342,
author = {Weikeng Chen and Ryan Deng and Raluca Ada Popa},
title = {N-for-1 Auth: N-wise Decentralized Authentication via One Authentication},
howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2021/342},
year = {2021},
note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/342}},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/342}
}
