1,618 research outputs found
Threshold Cryptosystems From Threshold Fully Homomorphic Encryption
We develop a general approach to adding a threshold functionality to a large class of (non- threshold) cryptographic schemes. A threshold functionality enables a secret key to be split into a number of shares, so that only a threshold of parties can use the key, without reconstructing the key. We begin by constructing a threshold fully-homomorphic encryption scheme (TFHE) from the learning with errors (LWE) problem. We next introduce a new concept, called a universal thresholdizer, from which many threshold systems are possible. We show how to construct a universal thresholdizer from our TFHE. A universal thresholdizer can be used to add threshold functionality to many systems, such as CCA-secure public key encryption (PKE), signature schemes, pseudorandom functions, and others primitives. In particular, by applying this paradigm to a (non-threshold) lattice signature system, we obtain the first single-round threshold signature scheme from LWE
General Impossibility of Group Homomorphic Encryption in the Quantum World
Group homomorphic encryption represents one of the most important building
blocks in modern cryptography. It forms the basis of widely-used, more
sophisticated primitives, such as CCA2-secure encryption or secure multiparty
computation. Unfortunately, recent advances in quantum computation show that
many of the existing schemes completely break down once quantum computers reach
maturity (mainly due to Shor's algorithm). This leads to the challenge of
constructing quantum-resistant group homomorphic cryptosystems.
In this work, we prove the general impossibility of (abelian) group
homomorphic encryption in the presence of quantum adversaries, when assuming
the IND-CPA security notion as the minimal security requirement. To this end,
we prove a new result on the probability of sampling generating sets of finite
(sub-)groups if sampling is done with respect to an arbitrary, unknown
distribution. Finally, we provide a sufficient condition on homomorphic
encryption schemes for our quantum attack to work and discuss its
satisfiability in non-group homomorphic cases. The impact of our results on
recent fully homomorphic encryption schemes poses itself as an open question.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, conferenc
Privacy-Aware Processing of Biometric Templates by Means of Secure Two-Party Computation
The use of biometric data for person identification and access control is gaining more and more popularity. Handling biometric data, however, requires particular care, since biometric data is indissolubly tied to the identity of the owner hence raising important security and privacy issues. This chapter focuses on the latter, presenting an innovative approach that, by relying on tools borrowed from Secure Two Party Computation (STPC) theory, permits to process the biometric data in encrypted form, thus eliminating any risk that private biometric information is leaked during an identification process. The basic concepts behind STPC are reviewed together with the basic cryptographic primitives needed to achieve privacy-aware processing of biometric data in a STPC context. The two main approaches proposed so far, namely homomorphic encryption and garbled circuits, are discussed and the way such techniques can be used to develop a full biometric matching protocol described. Some general guidelines to be used in the design of a privacy-aware biometric system are given, so as to allow the reader to choose the most appropriate tools depending on the application at hand
A Survey on Homomorphic Encryption Schemes: Theory and Implementation
Legacy encryption systems depend on sharing a key (public or private) among
the peers involved in exchanging an encrypted message. However, this approach
poses privacy concerns. Especially with popular cloud services, the control
over the privacy of the sensitive data is lost. Even when the keys are not
shared, the encrypted material is shared with a third party that does not
necessarily need to access the content. Moreover, untrusted servers, providers,
and cloud operators can keep identifying elements of users long after users end
the relationship with the services. Indeed, Homomorphic Encryption (HE), a
special kind of encryption scheme, can address these concerns as it allows any
third party to operate on the encrypted data without decrypting it in advance.
Although this extremely useful feature of the HE scheme has been known for over
30 years, the first plausible and achievable Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)
scheme, which allows any computable function to perform on the encrypted data,
was introduced by Craig Gentry in 2009. Even though this was a major
achievement, different implementations so far demonstrated that FHE still needs
to be improved significantly to be practical on every platform. First, we
present the basics of HE and the details of the well-known Partially
Homomorphic Encryption (PHE) and Somewhat Homomorphic Encryption (SWHE), which
are important pillars of achieving FHE. Then, the main FHE families, which have
become the base for the other follow-up FHE schemes are presented. Furthermore,
the implementations and recent improvements in Gentry-type FHE schemes are also
surveyed. Finally, further research directions are discussed. This survey is
intended to give a clear knowledge and foundation to researchers and
practitioners interested in knowing, applying, as well as extending the state
of the art HE, PHE, SWHE, and FHE systems.Comment: - Updated. (October 6, 2017) - This paper is an early draft of the
survey that is being submitted to ACM CSUR and has been uploaded to arXiv for
feedback from stakeholder
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