Lattice Trapdoors and IBE from Middle-Product LWE

Middle-product learning with errors (MP-LWE) was recently introduced by Rosca, Sakzad, Steinfeld and Stehlé (CRYPTO 2017) as a way to combine the efficiency of Ring-LWE with the more robust security guarantees of plain LWE. While Ring-LWE is at the heart of efficient lattice-based cryptosystems, it involves the choice of an underlying ring which is essentially arbitrary. In other words, the effect of this choice on the security of Ring-LWE is poorly understood. On the other hand, Rosca et al. showed that a new LWE variant, called MP-LWE, is as secure as Polynomial-LWE (another variant of Ring-LWE) over any of a broad class of number fields. They also demonstrated the usefulness of MP-LWE by constructing an MP-LWE based public-key encryption scheme whose efficiency is comparable to Ring-LWE based public-key encryption. In this work, we take this line of research further by showing how to construct Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) schemes that are secure under a variant of the MP-LWE assumption. Our IBE schemes match the efficiency of Ring-LWE based IBE, including a scheme in the random oracle model with keys and ciphertexts of size $\tilde{O}(n)$ (for $n$-bit identities). We construct our IBE scheme following the lattice trapdoors paradigm of [Gentry, Peikert, and Vaikuntanathan, STOC\u2708]; our main technical contributions are introducing a new leftover hash lemma and instantiating a new variant of lattice trapdoors compatible with MP-LWE. This work demonstrates that the efficiency/security tradeoff gains of MP-LWE can be extended beyond public-key encryption to more complex lattice-based primitives

Contributions to Lattice–based Cryptography

Post–quantum cryptography (PQC) is a new and fast–growing part of Cryptography. It focuses on developing cryptographic algorithms and protocols that resist quantum adversaries (i.e., the adversaries who have access to quantum computers). To construct a new PQC primitive, a designer must use a mathematical problem intractable for the quantum adversary. Many intractability assumptions are being used in PQC. There seems to be a consensus in the research community that the most promising are intractable/hard problems in lattices. However, lattice–based cryptography still needs more research to make it more efficient and practical. The thesis contributes toward achieving either the novelty or the practicality of lattice– based cryptographic systems

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

Improved (Hierarchical) Inner-Product Encryption from Lattices

Inner-product encryption (IPE) provides fine-grained access control and has attractive applications. Agrawal, Freeman, and Vaikuntanathan~(Asiacrypt 2011) proposed the first IPE scheme from lattices by twisting the identity-based encryption (IBE) scheme by Agrawal, Boneh, and Boyen~(Eurocrypt 2010). Their IPE scheme supports inner-product predicates over $R^{\mu}$, where the ring is $R = \mathbb{Z}_q$. Several applications require the ring $R$ to be exponentially large and, thus, they set $q = 2^{O(n)}$ to implement such applications. This choice results in the AFV IPE scheme with public parameters of size $O(\mu n^2 \lg^3{q}) = O(\mu n^5)$ and ciphertexts of size $O(\mu n \lg^3{q}) = O(\mu n^4)$, where $n$ is the security parameter. Hence, this makes the scheme impractical, as they noted. We address this efficiency issue by ``untwisting\u27\u27 their twist and providing another twist. Our scheme supports inner-product predicates over $R^\mu$ where $R = \mathrm{GF}(q^n)$ instead of $\mathbb{Z}_q$. Our scheme has public parameters of size $O(\mu n^2 \lg^2{q})$ and ciphertexts of size $O(\mu n \lg^2{q})$. Since the cardinality of $\mathrm{GF}(q^n)$ is inherently exponential in $n$, we have no need to set $q$ as the exponential size for applications. As side contributions, we extend our IPE scheme to a hierarchical IPE (HIPE) scheme and propose a fuzzy IBE scheme from IPE. Our HIPE scheme is more efficient than that developed by Abdalla, De Caro, and Mochetti (Latincrypt 2012). Our fuzzy IBE is secure under a much weaker assumption than that employed by Agrawal et al.~(PKC 2012), who constructed the first lattice-based fuzzy IBE scheme

Towards a Simpler Lattice Gadget Toolkit

As a building block, gadgets and associated algorithms are widely used in advanced lattice cryptosystems. The gadget algorithms for power-of-base moduli are very efficient and simple, however the current algorithms for arbitrary moduli are still complicated and practically more costly despite several efforts. Considering the necessity of arbitrary moduli, developing simpler and more practical gadget algorithms for arbitrary moduli is crucial to improving the practical performance of lattice based applications. In this work, we propose two new gadget sampling algorithms for arbitrary moduli. Our first algorithm is for gadget Gaussian sampling. It is simple and efficient. One distinguishing feature of our Gaussian sampler is that it does not need floating-point arithmetic, which makes it better compatible with constrained environments. Our second algorithm is for gadget subgaussian sampling. Compared with the existing algorithm, it is simpler, faster, and requires asymptotically less randomness. In addition, our subgaussian sampler achieves an almost equal quality for different practical parameters. Overall these two algorithms provide simpler options for gadget algorithms and enhance the practicality of the gadget toolkit

Learning with Errors over Group Rings Constructed by Semi-direct Product

The Learning with Errors (LWE) problem has been widely utilized as a foundation for numerous cryptographic tools over the years. In this study, we focus on an algebraic variant of the LWE problem called Group ring LWE (GR-LWE). We select group rings (or their direct summands) that underlie specific families of finite groups constructed by taking the semi-direct product of two cyclic groups. Unlike the Ring-LWE problem described in \cite{lyubashevsky2010ideal}, the multiplication operation in the group rings considered here is non-commutative. As an extension of Ring-LWE, it maintains computational hardness and can be potentially applied in many cryptographic scenarios. In this paper, we present two polynomial-time quantum reductions. Firstly, we provide a quantum reduction from the worst-case shortest independent vectors problem (SIVP) in ideal lattices with polynomial approximate factor to the search version of GR-LWE. This reduction requires that the underlying group ring possesses certain mild properties; Secondly, we present another quantum reduction for two types of group rings, where the worst-case SIVP problem is directly reduced to the (average-case) decision GR-LWE problem. The pseudorandomness of GR-LWE samples guaranteed by this reduction can be consequently leveraged to construct semantically secure public-key cryptosystems.Comment: 45 page

Approximate Trapdoors for Lattices and Smaller Hash-and-Sign Signatures

We study a relaxed notion of lattice trapdoor called approximate trapdoor, which is defined to be able to invert Ajtai\u27s one-way function approximately instead of exactly. The primary motivation of our study is to improve the efficiency of the cryptosystems built from lattice trapdoors, including the hash-and-sign signatures. Our main contribution is to construct an approximate trapdoor by modifying the gadget trapdoor proposed by Micciancio and Peikert. In particular, we show how to use the approximate gadget trapdoor to sample short preimages from a distribution that is simulatable without knowing the trapdoor. The analysis of the distribution uses a theorem (implicitly used in past works) regarding linear transformations of discrete Gaussians on lattices. Our approximate gadget trapdoor can be used together with the existing optimization techniques to improve the concrete performance of the hash-and-sign signature in the random oracle model under (Ring-)LWE and (Ring-)SIS assumptions. Our implementation shows that the sizes of the public-key and signature can be reduced by half from those in schemes built from exact trapdoors

Faster Gaussian Sampling for Trapdoor Lattices with Arbitrary Modulus

We present improved algorithms for gaussian preimage sampling using the lattice trapdoors of (Micciancio and Peikert, CRYPTO 2012). The MP12 work only offered a highly optimized algorithm for the on-line stage of the computation in the special case when the lattice modulus $q$ is a power of two. For arbitrary modulus $q$, the MP12 preimage sampling procedure resorted to general lattice algorithms with complexity cubic in the bitsize of the modulus (or quadratic, but with substantial preprocessing and storage overheads.) Our new preimage sampling algorithm (for any modulus $q$) achieves linear complexity, and has very modest storage requirements. As an additional contribution, we give a new off-line quasi-linear time perturbation sampling algorithm, with performance similar to the (expected) running time of an efficient method proposed by (Ducas and Nguyen, Asiacrypt 2012) for power-of-two cyclotomics, but without the (matrix factorization) preprocessing and (lattice rounding) postprocessing required by that algorithm. All our algorithms are fairly simple, with small hidden constants, and offer a practical alternative to use the MP12 trapdoor lattices in a broad range of cryptographic applications

Gadgets and Gaussians in Lattice-Based Cryptography

This dissertation explores optimal algorithms employed in lattice-based cryptographic schemes. Chapter 2 focuses on optimizing discrete gaussian sampling on "gadget" and algebraic lattices. These gaussian sampling algorithms are used in lattice-cryptography's most efficient trapdoor mechanism for the SIS and LWE problems: "MP12" trapdoors. However, this trapdoor mechanism was previously not optimized and inefficient (or not proven to be statistically correct) for structured lattices (ring-SIS/LWE), lattice-cryptography's most efficient form, where the modulus is often a prime. The algorithms in this chapter achieve optimality in this regime and have (already) resulted in drastic efficiency improvement in independent implementations.Chapter 3 digs deeper into the gadget lattice's associated algorithms. Specifically, we explore efficiently sampling a simple subgaussian distribution on gadget lattices, and we optimize LWE decoding on gadget lattices. These subgaussian sampling algorithms correspond to a randomized bit-decomposition needed in lattice-based schemes with homomorphic properties like fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). Next, we introduce a general class of "Chinese Remainder Theorem" (CRT) gadgets. These gadgets allow advanced lattice-based schemes to avoid multi-precision arithmetic when the applications modulus is larger than 64 bits. The algorithms presented in the first two chapters improve the efficiency of many lattice-based cryptosystems: digital signature schemes, identity-based encryption schemes, as well as more advanced schemes like fully-homomorphic encryption and attribute-based encryption. In the final chapter, we take a closer look at the random matrices used in trapdoor lattices. First, we revisit the constants in the concentration bounds of subgaussian random matrices. Then, we provide experimental evidence for a simple heuristic regarding the singular values of matrices with entries drawn from commonly used distributions in cryptography. Though the proofs in this chapter are dense, cryptographers need a strong understanding of the singular values of these matrices since their maximum singular value determines the concrete security of the trapdoor scheme's underlying SIS problem