There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

From the Publisher:
A valuable reference for the novice as well as for the expert who needs a wider scope of coverage within the area of cryptography, this book provides easy and rapid access of information and includes more than 200 algorithms and protocols; more than 200 tables and figures; more than 1,000 numbered definitions, facts, examples, notes, and remarks; and over 1,250 significant references, including brief comments on each paper.

Handbook of Applied Cryptography

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem, wherein it is impossible for an electronic content information provider to provide commercially secure and effective method, for a configurable general-purpose electronic commercial transaction/distribution control system. SOLUTION: In this system, having at least one protected processing environment for safely controlling at least one portion of decoding of digital information, a secure content distribution method comprises a process for encapsulating digital information in one or more digital containers; a process for encrypting at least a portion of digital information; a process for associating at least partially secure control information for managing interactions with encrypted digital information and/or digital container; a process for delivering one or more digital containers to a digital information user; and a process for using a protected processing environment, for safely controlling at least a portion of the decoding of the digital information. COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a423264.pdf

Systems and Methods for Secure Transaction Management and Electronic Rights Protection

We will review some of the major results in random graphs and some of the more challenging open problems. We will cover algorithmic and structural questions. We will touch on newer models, including those related to the WWW.

Random graphs

We propose a fully functional identity-based encryption scheme (IBE). The scheme has chosen ciphertext security in the random oracle model assuming an elliptic curve variant of the computational Diffie-Hellman problem. Our system is based on the Weil pairing. We give precise definitions for secure identity based encryption schemes and give several applications for such systems.

/pdf/identity-based-encryption-from-the-weil-pairing-sfqdyadlbb.pdf

Identity-Based Encryption from the Weil Pairing

Luby and Rackoff [26] showed a method for constructing a pseudorandom permutation from a pseudorandom function. The method is based on composing four (or three for weakened security) so-called Feistel permutations, each of which requires the evaluation of a pseudorandom function. We reduce somewhat the complexity of the construction and simplify its proof of security by showing that two Feistel permutations are sufficient together with initial and final pairwise independent permutations. The revised construction and proof provide a framework in which similar constructions may be brought up and their security can be easily proved. We demonstrate this by presenting some additional adjustments of the construction that achieve the following:

? Reduce the success probability of the adversary.

? Provide a construction of pseudorandom permutations with large input-length using pseudorandom functions with small input-length.

/pdf/on-the-construction-of-pseudorandom-permutations-luby-3e3blhbh4t.pdf

On the Construction of Pseudorandom Permutations: Luby--Rackoff Revisited

A novel technique, based on the pseudo-random properties of certain graphs known as expanders, is used to obtain novel simple explicit constructions of asymptotically good codes. In one of the constructions, the expanders are used to enhance Justesen codes by replicating, shuffling, and then regrouping the code coordinates. For any fixed (small) rate, and for a sufficiently large alphabet, the codes thus obtained lie above the Zyablov bound. Using these codes as outer codes in a concatenated scheme, a second asymptotic good construction is obtained which applies to small alphabets (say, GF(2)) as well. Although these concatenated codes lie below the Zyablov bound, they are still superior to previously known explicit constructions in the zero-rate neighborhood. >

/pdf/construction-of-asymptotically-good-low-rate-error-1bg973alog.pdf

Construction of asymptotically good low-rate error-correcting codes through pseudo-random graphs

We give cryptographic schemes that help trace the source of leaks when sensitive or proprietary data is made available to a large set of parties. A very relevant application is in the context of pay television, where only paying customers should be able to view certain programs. In this application, the programs are normally encrypted, and then the sensitive data is the decryption keys that are given to paying customers. If a pirate decoder is found, it is desirable to reveal the source of its decryption keys. We describe fully resilient schemes which can be used against any decoder which decrypts with nonnegligible probability. Since there is typically little demand for decoders which decrypt only a small fraction of the transmissions (even if it is nonnegligible), we further introduce threshold tracing schemes which can only be used against decoders which succeed in decryption with probability greater than some threshold. Threshold schemes are considerably more efficient than fully resilient schemes.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/18/18178/00841169.pdf

Tracing traitors

A new solution is suggested for the problem of certificate revocation. This solution represents Certificate Revocation Lists by an authenticated search data structure. The process of verifying whether a certificate is in the list or not, as well as updating the list, is made very efficient. The suggested solution gains in scalability, communication costs, robustness to parameter changes and update rate. Comparisons to the following solutions are included: 'traditional' CRLs (Certificate Revocation Lists), Micali's Certificate Revocation System (CRS) and Kocher's Certificate Revocation Trees (CRT).

Finally, a scenario in which certificates are not revoked, but frequently issued for short-term periods is considered. Based on the authenticated search data structure scheme, a certificate update scheme is presented in which all certificates are updated by a common message.

The suggested solutions for certificate revocation and certificate update problems is better than current solutions with respect to communication costs, update rate, and robustness to changes in parameters and is compatible e.g. with X.500 certificates.

Certificate revocation and certificate update

We describe efficient constructions for various cryptographic primitives (both in private-key and in publickey cryptography). We show these constructions to be at least as secure as the decisional version of the DiffieHellman assumption or as the assumption that factoring is hard. Our major result is a new construction of pseudo-random functions such that computing their value at any given point involves two multiple products. This is much more efficient than previous proposals. Furthermore, these functions have the advantage of being in TCo (the class of functions computable by constant depth circuits consisting of a polynomial number of threshold gates) which has several interesting applications. The simple algebraic structure of the functions implies additional features. In particular, we show a zero-knowledge proof for statements of the form “y = fs(x)” and “y # fs(z)” given a commitment to a key s of a pseudc-random function fs.

Moni Naor

Papers

On the Construction of Pseudorandom Permutations: Luby--Rackoff Revisited

Construction of asymptotically good low-rate error-correcting codes through pseudo-random graphs

Tracing traitors

Certificate revocation and certificate update

Number-Theoretic Constructions of Efficient Pseudo-Random Functions (Extended Abstract)