A supplement to Liu et al.\u27s certificateless signcryption scheme in the standard model

Recently, Liu et al. proposed the first certificateless signcryption scheme without random oracles and proved it was semantically secure in the standard model. However, Selvi et al. launched a fatal attack to its confidentiality by replacing users\u27 public keys, thus pointed out this scheme actually doesn\u27t reach the semantic security as claimed. In this paper, we come up with a rescue scheme based on Liu et al.\u27s original proposal. A Schnorr-based one-time signature is added to each user\u27s public key, which is used to resist Selvi et al.\u27s attack. In addition, according to the mistake made in Liu et al.\u27s security proof, we also show that our improvement is really secure in the standard model under the intractability of the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption

On the security of a certicateless signature scheme in the standard model

Most of certificateless signature schemes without random oracles can not resist key replacement attack. To overcome this security weakness, Yu et al. recently propose a new certificateless signature scheme and claimed that their scheme is provably secure in the standard model. However, in this paper, we show their scheme is still insecure against key replacement attack where an adversary who replaces the public key of a signer can forge valid signatures on any messages for that signer without knowing the signer\u27s partial secret key. Moreover, we show Yu et al.\u27s certificateless signature scheme is vulnerable to ``malicious-but-passive\u27\u27 KGC attack where a malicious KGC can forge valid signatures by embedding extra trapdoors in the system parameter

An Efficient and Secure Certificateless Authentication Protocol for Healthcare System on Wireless Medical Sensor Networks

Sensor networks have opened up new opportunities in healthcare systems, which can transmit patient’s condition to health professional’s hand-held devices in time. The patient’s physiological signals are very sensitive and the networks are extremely vulnerable to many attacks. It must be ensured that patient’s privacy is not exposed to unauthorized entities. Therefore, the control of access to healthcare systems has become a crucial challenge. An efficient and secure authentication protocol will thus be needed in wireless medical sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a certificateless authentication scheme without bilinear pairing while providing patient anonymity. Compared with other related protocols, the proposed scheme needs less computation and communication cost and preserves stronger security. Our performance evaluations show that this protocol is more practical for healthcare system in wireless medical sensor networks

Efficient Secure Multiparty Computation Protocol for Sequencing Problem over Insecure Channel

As a powerful tool in solving privacy preserving cooperative problems, secure multiparty computation is more and more popular in electronic bidding, anonymous voting, and online auction. Privacy preserving sequencing problem which is an essential link is regarded as the core issue in these applications. However, due to the difficulties of solving multiparty privacy preserving sequencing problem, related secure protocol is extremely rare. In order to break this deadlock, this paper first presents an efficient secure multiparty computation protocol for the general privacy-preserving sequencing problem based on symmetric homomorphic encryption. The result is of value not only in theory, but also in practice

On the security of a certificateless aggregate signature scheme

Aggregate signature can combinensignatures on nmessages fromnusers into a single short signature, and the resulting signature can convince the verifier that thenusers indeed signed the ncorresponding messages. This feature makes aggregate signature very useful especially in environments with low bandwidth communication, low storage and low computability since it greatly reduces the total signature length and verification cost. Recently, Xiong et al. presented an efficient certificateless aggregate signature scheme. They proved that their scheme is secure in a strengthened security model, where the “malicious-but-passive” KGC attack was considered. In this paper, we show that Xiong et al.’s certificateless aggregate signature scheme is not secure even in a weaker security model called “honest-but-curious” KGC attack model

Polymer Acceptors with Flexible Spacers Afford Efficient and Mechanically Robust All-Polymer Solar Cells

High efficiency and mechanical robustness are both crucial for the practical applications of all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) in stretchable and wearable electronics. In this regard, a series of new polymer acceptors (PAs) is reported by incorporating a flexible conjugation-break spacer (FCBS) to achieve highly efficient and mechanically robust all-PSCs. Incorporation of FCBS affords the effective modulation of the crystallinity and pre-aggregation of the PAs, and achieves the optimal blend morphology with polymer donor (PD), increasing both the photovoltaic and mechanical properties of all-PSCs. In particular, an all-PSC based on PYTS-0.3 PA incorporated with 30% FCBS and PBDB-T PD demonstrates a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 14.68% and excellent mechanical stretchability with a crack onset strain (COS) of 21.64% and toughness of 3.86\ua0MJ m-3, which is significantly superior to those of devices with the PA without the FCBS (PYTS-0.0, PCE = 13.01%, and toughness = 2.70\ua0MJ m-3). To date, this COS is the highest value reported for PSCs with PCEs of over 8% without any insulating additives. These results reveal that the introduction of FCBS into the conjugated backbone is a highly feasible strategy to simultaneously improve the PCE and stretchability of PSCs