Consider the well-known oracle attack: Somehow one gets a certain computation result as a function of a secret key from the secret key owner and tries to extract some information on the secret key. This attacking scenario is well understood in the cryptographic community. However, there are many protocols based on the discrete logarithm problem that turn out to leak many of the secret key bits from this oracle attack, unless suitable checkings are carried out. In this paper we present a key recovery attack on various discrete log-based schemes working in a prime order subgroup. Our attack can disclose part of, or the whole secret key in most Diffie-Hellman-type key exchange protocols and some applications of ElGamal encryption and signature schemes. Key Words : Key recovery attack, Discrete logarithms, Key exchange, Digital signatures. 1 Introduction Many cryptographic protocols have been developed based on the discrete logarithm problem. The main objective of developers is to design...

Signcryption is a public key or asymmetric cryptographic method that provides simultaneously both message confidentiality and unforgeability at a lower computational and communication overhead.

Abstract. This paper provides either security proofs or attacks for a large number of identity-based identification and signature schemes defined either explicitly or implicitly in existing literature. Underlying these are a framework that on the one hand helps explain how these schemes are derived, and on the other hand enables modular security analyses, thereby helping to understand, simplify and unify previous work. 1

Abstract. We describe two simple, efficient and effective credential pseudonymous certificate systems, which also support anonymity without the need for a trusted third party. The second system provides cryptographic protection against the forgery and transfer of credentials. Both systems are based on a new paradigm, called self-blindable certificates. Such certificates can be constructed using the Weil pairing in supersingular elliptic curves. 1

Abstract. We revisit the definitions of zero-knowledge in the Common Reference String (CRS) model and the Random Oracle (RO) model. We argue that even though these definitions syntactically mimic the standard zero-knowledge definition, they loose some of its spirit. In particular, we show that there exist a specific natural security property that is not captured by these definitions. This is the property of deniability. We formally define the notion of deniable zero-knowledge in these models and investigate the possibility of achieving it. Our results are different for the two models: – Concerning the CRS model, we rule out the possibility of achieving deniable zero-knowledge protocols in “natural ” settings where such protocols cannot already be achieved in plain model. – In the RO model, on the other hand, we construct an efficient 2round deniable zero-knowledge argument of knowledge, that preserves both the zero-knowledge property and the proof of knowledge property under concurrent executions (concurrent zero-knowledge and concurrent proof-of knowledge). 1

Signature schemes that are derived from three move identification schemes such as the Fiat-Shamir, Schnorr and modified ElGamal schemes are a typical class of the most practical signature schemes. The random oracle paradigm [1, 2, 12] is useful to prove the security of such a class of signature schemes [4, 12]. This paper presents a new key technique, "ID reduction", to show the concrete security result of this class of signature schemes under the random oracle paradigm. First, we apply this technique to the Schnorr and modified ElGamal schemes, and show the "concrete security analysis" of these schemes. We then apply it to the multi-signature schemes.

There have been many approaches in the past to generalize the ElGamal signature scheme. In this paper we integrate all these approaches in a Meta-ElGamal signature scheme. We also investigate some new types of variations, that haven't been considered before. By this method we obtain in our example settings numerous variants of the ElGamal scheme. From these variants, we can extract new, highly efficient signature schemes, which haven't been proposed before. As an example, we present efficient DSA-variants.

Secret handshake protocols were recently introduced [1] to allow members of the same group to authenticate each other secretly, in the sense that someone who is not a group member cannot tell, by engaging some party in the handshake protocol, whether that party is a member of this group. On the other hand, any two parties who are members of the same group will recognize each other as members. Thus, a secret handshake protocol can be used in any scenario where group members need to identify each other without revealing their group a#liations to outsiders.

There have been several approaches in the past to obtain signature schemes with appendix and signature schemes giving message recovery based on the discrete logarithm problem. Most of them can be embedded into a Meta-ElGamal and Meta-Message recovery scheme. In this paper we present the Meta-blind signature schemes which have been developed from the ElGamal based blind signature scheme and the message recovery blind signature scheme discovered recently. From our Meta-scheme we get various variants from which some are more efficient than the already known ones. They can be recommended for practical use. Then we give interesting applications of the Meta-Message recovery and Meta-Blind signature schemes like authentic encryption schemes, key distribution protocols and authentication schemes. Again, we can extract highly efficient variants.

Semantic security against chosen-ciphertext attacks (IND-CCA) is widely believed as the correct security level for public-key encryption scheme. On the other hand, it is often dangerous to give to only one people the power of decryption. Therefore, threshold cryptosystems aimed at distributing the decryption ability. However, only two efficient such schemes have been proposed so far for achieving IND-CCA. Both are El Gamal-like schemes and thus are based on the same intractability assumption, namely the Decisional Diffie-Hellman problem. In this article we rehabilitate the twin-encryption paradigm proposed by Naor and Yung to present generic conversions from a large family of (threshold) IND-CPA scheme into a (threshold) IND-CCA one in the random oracle model. An efficient instantiation is also proposed, which is based on the Paillier cryptosystem. This new construction provides the first example of threshold cryptosystem secure against chosen-ciphertext attacks based on the factorization problem. Moreover, this construction provides a scheme where the “homomorphic properties” of the original scheme still hold. This is rather cumbersome because homomorphic cryptosystems are known to be malleable and therefore not to be CCA secure. However, we do not build a “homomorphic cryptosystem”, but just keep the homomorphic properties.