Server-Aided Revocable Predicate Encryption: Formalization and Lattice-Based Instantiation

Efficient user revocation is a necessary but challenging problem in many multi-user cryptosystems. Among known approaches, server-aided revocation yields a promising solution, because it allows to outsource the major workloads of system users to a computationally powerful third party, called the server, whose only requirement is to carry out the computations correctly. Such a revocation mechanism was considered in the settings of identity-based encryption and attribute-based encryption by Qin et al. (ESORICS 2015) and Cui et al. (ESORICS 2016), respectively. In this work, we consider the server-aided revocation mechanism in the more elaborate setting of predicate encryption (PE). The latter, introduced by Katz, Sahai, and Waters (EUROCRYPT 2008), provides fine-grained and role-based access to encrypted data and can be viewed as a generalization of identity-based and attribute-based encryption. Our contribution is two-fold. First, we formalize the model of server-aided revocable predicate encryption (SR-PE), with rigorous definitions and security notions. Our model can be seen as a non-trivial adaptation of Cui et al.'s work into the PE context. Second, we put forward a lattice-based instantiation of SR-PE. The scheme employs the PE scheme of Agrawal, Freeman and Vaikuntanathan (ASIACRYPT 2011) and the complete subtree method of Naor, Naor, and Lotspiech (CRYPTO 2001) as the two main ingredients, which work smoothly together thanks to a few additional techniques. Our scheme is proven secure in the standard model (in a selective manner), based on the hardness of the Learning With Errors (LWE) problem.Comment: 24 page

URDP: General Framework for Direct CCA2 Security from any Lattice-Based PKE Scheme

Design efficient lattice-based cryptosystem secure against adaptive chosen ciphertext attack (IND-CCA2) is a challenge problem. To the date, full CCA2-security of all proposed lattice-based PKE schemes achieved by using a generic transformations such as either strongly unforgeable one-time signature schemes (SU-OT-SS), or a message authentication code (MAC) and weak form of commitment. The drawback of these schemes is that encryption requires "separate encryption". Therefore, the resulting encryption scheme is not sufficiently efficient to be used in practice and it is inappropriate for many applications such as small ubiquitous computing devices with limited resources such as smart cards, active RFID tags, wireless sensor networks and other embedded devices. In this work, for the first time, we introduce an efficient universal random data padding (URDP) scheme, and show how it can be used to construct a "direct" CCA2-secure encryption scheme from "any" worst-case hardness problems in (ideal) lattice in the standard model, resolving a problem that has remained open till date. This novel approach is a "black-box" construction and leads to the elimination of separate encryption, as it avoids using general transformation from CPA-secure scheme to a CCA2-secure one. IND-CCA2 security of this scheme can be tightly reduced in the standard model to the assumption that the underlying primitive is an one-way trapdoor function.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1302.0347, arXiv:1211.6984; and with arXiv:1205.5224 by other author

Cloud Computing in the Quantum Era

Cloud computing has become the prominent technology of this era. Its elasticity, dynamicity, availability, heterogeneity, and pay as you go pricing model has attracted several companies to migrate their businesses' services into the cloud. This gives them more time to focus solely on their businesses and reduces the management and backup overhead leveraging the flexibility of cloud computing. On the other hand, quantum technology is developing very rapidly. Experts are expecting to get an efficient quantum computer within the next decade. This has a significant impact on several sciences including cryptography, medical research, and other fields. This paper analyses the reciprocal impact of quantum technology on cloud computing and vice versa