1 research outputs found
On the Application of Identity-Based Cryptography in Grid Security
This thesis examines the application of identity-based cryptography
(IBC) in designing security infrastructures for grid applications.
In this thesis, we propose a fully identity-based key infrastructure
for grid (IKIG). Our proposal exploits some interesting properties
of hierarchical identity-based cryptography (HIBC) to replicate
security services provided by the grid security infrastructure (GSI)
in the Globus Toolkit. The GSI is based on public key infrastructure
(PKI) that supports standard X.509 certificates and proxy
certificates. Since our proposal is certificate-free and has small
key sizes, it offers a more lightweight approach to key management
than the GSI. We also develop a one-pass delegation protocol that
makes use of HIBC properties. This combination of lightweight key
management and efficient delegation protocol has better scalability
than the existing PKI-based approach to grid security.
Despite the advantages that IKIG offers, key escrow remains an issue
which may not be desirable for certain grid applications. Therefore,
we present an alternative identity-based approach called dynamic key
infrastructure for grid (DKIG). Our DKIG proposal combines both
identity-based techniques and the conventional PKI approach. In this
hybrid setting, each user publishes a fixed parameter set through a
standard X.509 certificate. Although X.509 certificates are involved
in DKIG, it is still more lightweight than the GSI as it enables the
derivation of both long-term and proxy credentials on-the-fly based
only on a fixed certificate.
We also revisit the notion of secret public keys which was
originally used as a cryptographic technique for designing secure
password-based authenticated key establishment protocols. We
introduce new password-based protocols using identity-based secret
public keys. Our identity-based techniques can be integrated
naturally with the standard TLS handshake protocol. We then discuss
how this TLS-like identity-based secret public key protocol can be
applied to securing interactions between users and credential
storage systems, such as MyProxy, within grid environments