IACR News item: 21 November 2012
Periklis A. Papakonstantinou, Charles W. Rackoff, Yevgeniy Vahlis
ePrint ReportThe vast majority of existing separation results typically give separation from general primitives, whereas we separate a primitive from a class of number theoretic hardness assumptions. Accordingly, we face challenges in creating an attack algorithm that will work against constructions which leverage the underlying algebraic structure of the group. In fact, we know that this algebraic structure is powerful enough to provide generic constructions for several powerful primitives including oblivious transfer and chosen ciphertext secure public-key cryptosystems (note that an IBE generalizes such systems). Technically, we explore statistical properties of the group algebra associated with a DDH oracle, which can be of independent interest.
Additional news items may be found on the IACR news page.