Universally Convertible Directed Signatures

Many variants of Chaum and van Antwerpen's undeniable signatures have been proposed to achieve specific properties desired in real-world applications of cryptography. Among them, directed signatures were introduced by Lim and Lee in 1993. Directed signatures differ from the well-known confirmer signatures in that the signer has the simultaneous abilities to confirm, deny and individually convert a signature. The universal conversion of these signatures has remained an open problem since their introduction in 1993. This paper provides a positive answer to this quest by showing a very efficient design for universally convertible directed signatures (UCDS) both in terms of computational complexity and signature size. Our construction relies on the so-called xyz-trick applicable to bilinear map groups. We define proper security notions for UCDS schemes and show that our construction is secure, in the random oracle model, under computational assumptions close to the CDH and DDH assumptions. Finally, we introduce and realize traceable universally convertible directed signatures where a master tracing key allows to link signatures to their direction

Non-delegatable Identity-based Designated Verifier Signature

Designated verifier signature is a cryptographic primitive which allows a signer to convince a designated verifier of the validity of a statement but in the meanwhile prevents the verifier from transferring this conviction to any third party. In this work we present the \emph{first} identity-based designated verifier signature scheme that supports non-delegatability, and prove its security in the random oracle model, based on computational Diffie-Hellman assumption. Our scheme is perfectly non-transferable, and its non-delegatability follows the original definition proposed by Lipmaa et al. \cite{LipmaaWaBa05}

A Novel Strong Designated Verifier Signature Scheme without Random Oracles

In this study, a novel pairing based strong designated verifier signature scheme based on non-interactive zero knowledge proofs is proposed. The security of the proposal is presented by sequences of games without random oracles; furthermore, this scheme has a security proof for the property of privacy of the signer’s identity in comparison with the scheme proposed by Zhang et al. in 2007. In addition, this proposal compared to the scheme presented by Huang et al. in 2011 supports non-delegatability. The non-delegatability of our proposal is achieved since we do not use the common secret key shared between the signer and the designated verifier in our construction. Furthermore, if a signer delegates her signing capability which is derived from her secret key on a specific message to a third party, then, the third party cannot generate a valid designated verifier signature due to the relaxed special soundness of the non-interactive zero knowledge proof. To the best of our knowledge, this construction is the first attempt to generate a designated verifier signature scheme with non-delegatability in the standard model, while satisfying of non-delegatability property is loose

Design and Analysis of Opaque Signatures

Digital signatures were introduced to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of the underlying messages. A digital signature scheme comprises the key generation, the signature, and the verification algorithms. The key generation algorithm creates the signing and the verifying keys, called also the signer’s private and public keys respectively. The signature algorithm, which is run by the signer, produces a signature on the input message. Finally, the verification algorithm, run by anyone who knows the signer’s public key, checks whether a purported signature on some message is valid or not. The last property, namely the universal verification of digital signatures is undesirable in situations where the signed data is commercially or personally sensitive. Therefore, mechanisms which share most properties with digital signatures except for the universal verification were invented to respond to the aforementioned need; we call such mechanisms “opaque signatures”. In this thesis, we study the signatures where the verification cannot be achieved without the cooperation of a specific entity, namely the signer in case of undeniable signatures, or the confirmer in case of confirmer signatures; we make three main contributions. We first study the relationship between two security properties important for public key encryption, namely data privacy and key privacy. Our study is motivated by the fact that opaque signatures involve always an encryption layer that ensures their opacity. The properties required for this encryption vary according to whether we want to protect the identity (i.e. the key) of the signer or hide the validity of the signature. Therefore, it would be convenient to use existing work about the encryption scheme in order to derive one notion from the other. Next, we delve into the generic constructions of confirmer signatures from basic cryptographic primitives, e.g. digital signatures, encryption, or commitment schemes. In fact, generic constructions give easy-to-understand and easy-to-prove schemes, however, this convenience is often achieved at the expense of efficiency. In this contribution, which constitutes the core of this thesis, we first analyze the already existing constructions; our study concludes that the popular generic constructions of confirmer signatures necessitate strong security assumptions on the building blocks, which impacts negatively the efficiency of the resulting signatures. Next, we show that a small change in these constructionsmakes these assumptions drop drastically, allowing as a result constructions with instantiations that compete with the dedicated realizations of these signatures. Finally, we revisit two early undeniable signatures which were proposed with a conjectural security. We disprove the claimed security of the first scheme, and we provide a fix to it in order to achieve strong security properties. Next, we upgrade the second scheme so that it supports a iii desirable feature, and we provide a formal security treatment of the new scheme: we prove that it is secure assuming new reasonable assumptions on the underlying constituents

A Pairing Based Strong Designated Verifier Signature Scheme without Random Oracles

In this study, a novel strong designated verifier signature scheme based on bilinear pairings with provable security in the standard model is proposed, while the existing ones are secure in the random oracle model. In 2007 and 2011, two strong designated verifier signature schemes in the standard model are proposed by Huang et al. and Zhang et al., respectively; in the former, the property of privacy of the signer’s identity is not proved and the security of the latter is based on the security of a pseudorandom function. Our proposal can deal with the aforementioned drawbacks of the previous schemes. Furthermore, it satisfies non-delegatability for signature verificatio

An Efficient Certificate-Based Designated Verifier Signature Scheme

Certificate-based public key cryptography not only solves certificate revocation problem in traditional PKI but also overcomes key escrow problem inherent in identity-based cryptosystems. This new primitive has become an attractive cryptographic paradigm. In this paper, we propose the notion and the security model of certificate-based designated verifier signatures (CBDVS). We provide the first construction of CBDVS and prove that our scheme is existentially unforgeable against adaptive chosen message attacks in the random oracle model. Our scheme only needs two pairing operations, and the signature is only one element in the bilinear group G1. To the best of our knowledge, our scheme enjoys shortest signature length with less operation cost

Strong Designated Verifier Signature Schemes with Undeniable Property and Their Applications

Most of the strong designated verifier signature (SDVS) schemes cannot tell the real signature generator when the signer and the designated verifier dispute on a signature. In other words, most of the SDVS schemes do not have the undeniability property. In this paper, we propose two SDVS schemes which hold the undeniability property, namely, strong designated verifier signature with undeniability property (SDVSUP). Our two schemes are called SDVSUP-1 and SDVSUP-2. In our two SDVSUP schemes, the signer not only can designate a verifier but also can designate an arbiter who can judge the signature when the signer and the designated verifier dispute on the signature. What is more, the judgment procedure can be performed by the arbiter alone without help from the signer or the designated verifier, which increases the judgment efficiency and reduces the complexity of signature confirmation. We also demonstrate a real instance of applying our SDVSUP scheme to electronic bidding system

Asymmetric Message Franking: Content Moderation for Metadata-Private End-to-End Encryption

Content moderation is crucial for stopping abuse and harassment via messaging on online platforms. Existing moderation mechanisms, such as message franking, require platform providers to see user identifiers on encrypted traffic. These mechanisms cannot be used in messaging systems in which users can hide their identities, such as Signal. The key technical challenge preventing moderation is in simultaneously achieving cryptographic accountability while preserving deniability. In this work, we resolve this tension with a new cryptographic primitive: asymmetric message franking schemes (AMFs). We define strong security notions for AMFs, including the first formal treatment of deniability in moderation settings. We then construct, analyze, and implement an AMF scheme that is fast enough for deployment. We detail how to use AMFs to build content moderation for metadata-private messaging