International Association for Cryptologic Research

# IACR News Central

You can also access the full news archive.

Further sources to find out about changes are CryptoDB, ePrint RSS, ePrint Web, Event calender (iCal).

2014-01-07
10:17 [Pub][ePrint]

We present the first provably-secure 3-party password-only authenticated key exchange (PAKE) protocol that can run in only two communication rounds. Our protocol is generic in the sense that it can be constructed from any 2-party PAKE protocol. The protocol is proven secure in a variant of the widely accepted model of Bellare, Pointcheval and Rogaway (2000) without any idealized assumptions on the cryptographic primitives used. We also investigate the security of the 2-round 3-party PAKE protocol of Wang, Hu and Li (2010), and demonstrate that this protocol cannot achieve implicit key authentication in the presence of an active adversary.

10:17 [Pub][ePrint]

Understanding the minimal assumptions required for carrying out cryptographic tasks is one of the fundamental goals of theoretical cryptography. A rich body of work has been dedicated to understanding the complexity of cryptographic tasks in the context of (semi-honest) secure two-party computation. Much of this work has focused on the characterization of trivial and complete functionalities (resp., functionalities that can be securely implemented unconditionally, and functionalities that can be used to securely compute all functionalities).

All previous works define reductions via an ideal implementation of the functionality; \\ie $f$ reduces to $g$ if one can implement $f$ using an ideal box (or oracle) that computes the function $g$ and returns the output to both parties. Such a reduction models the computation of $f$ as an \\emph{atomic operation}. However, in the real-world, protocols proceed in rounds, and the output is not learned by the parties simultaneously. In this paper we show that this distinction is significant. Specifically, we show that there exist symmetric functionalities (where both parties receive the same outcome), that are neither trivial nor complete under ideal-box reductions\'\', and yet the existence of a constant-round protocol for securely computing such a functionality implies infinitely-often oblivious transfer (meaning that it is secure for infinitely-many $n$\'s).

In light of the above, we propose an alternative definitional infrastructure for studying the triviality and completeness of functionalities.

2014-01-06
07:11 [PhD][New]

Name: Sebastian Pape
Topic: The Challenge of Authentication in Insecure Environments
Category: secret-key cryptography

07:11 [PhD][New]

2014-01-05
15:50 [PhD][New]

Name: Emmanuelle Encrenaz

15:50 [PhD][New]

Name: Bruno Robisson

15:48 [PhD][New]

Name: Dong Hoon Lee
Category: (no category)

15:42 [PhD][New]

Name: Kwangsu Lee
Topic: Efficient Hidden Vector Encryptions and Its Applications
Category: public-key cryptography

Description:

\r\nPredicate encryption is a new paradigm of public key encryption that enables searches on encrypted data. Using the predicate encryption, we can search keywords or attributes on encrypted data without decrypting the ciphertexts. In predicate encryption, a ciphertext is associated with attributes and a token corresponds to a predicate. The token that corresponds to a predicate $f$ can decrypt the ciphertext associated with attributes $\\vect{x}$ if and only if $f(\\vect{x})=1$.\r\n

\r\nHidden vector encryption (HVE) is a special kind of predicate encryption. HVE supports the evaluation of conjunctive equality, comparison, and subset operations between attributes in ciphertexts and attributes in tokens. Currently, several HVE schemes were proposed where the ciphertext size, the token size, and the decryption cost are proportional to the number of attributes in the ciphertext. In this thesis, we consider the efficiency, the generality, and the security of HVE schemes. The results of this thesis are described as follows.\r\n

\r\nThe first results of this thesis are efficient HVE schemes where the token consists of just four group elements and the decryption only requires four bilinear map computations, independent of the number of attributes in the ciphertext. The construction uses composite order bilinear groups and is selectively secure under the well-known assumptions.\r\n

\r\nThe second results are efficient HVE schemes that are secure under any kind of pairing types. To achieve our goals, we proposed a general framework that converts HVE schemes from composite order bilinear groups to prime order bilinear groups. Using the framework, we convert the previous HVE schemes from composite order bilinear groups to prime order bilinear groups.\r\n

\r\nThe third results are fully secure HVE schemes with short tokens. Previous HVE schemes were proven to be secure only in the selective security model where the capabilities of the adversaries are[...]

15:34 [PhD][New]

Name: Amr Youssef
Category: (no category)

15:34 [PhD][New]

Name: Zachary Kissel
Topic: Verifiable Symmetric Searchable Encryption
Category: secret-key cryptography

Description:

Cloud storage has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. It provides a convenient platform for users to store data that can be accessed from anywhere at anytime without the cost of maintaining a storage infrastructure. However, cloud storage is inherently insecure, hindering general acceptance of the paradigm shift. To make use of storage services provided by a cloud, users would need to place their trust, at least implicitly, in the provider. There have been a number of attempts to alleviate the need for this trust through cryptographic methods. An immediate approach would be to encrypt each file before uploading it to the cloud. This approach, calls for a new searching mechanism over encrypted data stored in the cloud.\r\n

\r\n

This dissertation considers a solution to this problem using Symmetric Searchable Encryption (SSE). SSE allows users to offload search queries to the cloud. The cloud is then responsible for returning the encrypted files that match the search queries (also encrypted). Most previous work was focused on keyword search in the Honest-but-Curious (HBC) cloud model, while some more recent work has considered searching on phrases. Recently, a new cloud model was introduced that supersedes the HBC model. This new model, called Semi-Honest but Curious (SHBC), is less restrictive over the actions a cloud can take. In this dissertation, we present three systems that are secure under this new SHBC model. Two systems provide phrase search and the other provides hierarchical access control over keyword search.

[...]

15:34 [PhD][New]

Name: Jie Wang
Topic: Polynomial Time Creativity and its Applications (P-Creativity)
Category: (no category)