Secret Handshake protocol allows members of the same group to authenticate each other secretly. That is, two members who belong to the same group can learn counterpart is in the same group, while non-member of the group cannot determine whether the counterpart is a member of the group or not. Yamashita and Tanaka proposed Secret Handshake Scheme with Multiple Groups (SHSMG). They extended a single group setting to a multiple groups setting where two members output "accept" iff both member's affiliations of the multiple groups are identical. In this paper, we first show the flaw of their SHSMG, and we construct a new secure SHSMG. Second, we introduce a new concept of Secret Handshake scheme, "monotone condition Secret Handshake with Multiple Groups (mc-SHSMG)," in order to extend the condition of "accept." In our new setting of handshake protocol, members can authenticate each other in monotone condition (not only both member's affiliations are identical but also the affiliations are not identical). The communication costs and computational costs of our proposed mc-SHSMG are fewer than the trivial construction of mc-SHSMG.

Homomorphic encryption (HE) is useful to analyze encrypted data without decrypting it. However, by using ordinary HE, a user who can decrypt a ciphertext that is generated by executing homomorphic operations, can also decrypt ciphertexts on which homomorphic evaluations have not been performed, since homomorphic operations cannot be executed among ciphertexts which are encrypted under different public keys. To resolve the above problem, we introduce a new cryptographic primitive called Homomorphic Proxy Re-Encryption (HPRE) combining the “key-switching” property of Proxy Re-Encryption (PRE) and the homomorphic property of HE. In our HPRE, original ciphertexts (which have not been re-encrypted) guarantee CCA2 security (and in particular satisfy non-malleability). On the other hand, re-encrypted ciphertexts only guarantee CPA security, so that homomorphic operations can be performed on them. We define the functional/security requirements of HPRE, and then propose a specific construction supporting the group operation (over the target group in bilinear groups) based on the PRE scheme by Libert and Vergnaud (PKC 2008) and the CCA secure public key encryption scheme by Lai et al. (CT-RSA 2010), and prove its security in the standard model. Additionally, we show two extensions of our HPRE scheme for the group operation: an HPRE scheme for addition and an HPRE scheme for degree-2 polynomials (in which the number of degree-2 terms is constant), by using the technique of the recent work by Catalano and Fiore (ACMCCS 2015).

In this paper, we put forward the notion of a token-based multi-input functional encryption (token-based MIFE) scheme - a notion intended to give encryptors a mechanism to control the decryption of encrypted messages, by extending the encryption and decryption algorithms to additionally use tokens. The basic idea is that a decryptor must hold an appropriate decryption token in addition to his secrete key, to be able to decrypt. This type of scheme can address security concerns potentially arising in applications of functional encryption aimed at addressing the problem of privacy preserving data analysis. We firstly formalize token-based MIFE, and then provide two basic schemes; both are based on an ordinary MIFE scheme, but the first additionally makes use of a public key encryption scheme, whereas the second makes use of a pseudorandom function (PRF). Lastly, we extend the latter construction to allow decryption tokens to be restricted to specified set of encryptions, even if all encryptions have been done using the same encryption token. This is achieved by using a constrained PRF.

Homomorphic encryption allows computation over encrypted data, and can be used for delegating computation: data providers encrypt their data and send them to an aggregator, who can then perform computation over the encrypted data on behalf of a client, without the underlying data being exposed to the aggregator. However, since the aggregator is merely a third party, it may be malicious, and in particular, may submit an incorrect aggregation result to the receiver. Ohara et al. (APKC2014) studied secure aggregation of time-series data while enabling the correctness of aggregation to be verified. However, they only provided a concrete construction in the smart metering system and only gave an intuitive argument of security. In this paper, we define verifiable homomorphic encryption (VHE) which generalizes their scheme, and introduce formal security definitions. Further, we formally prove that Ohara et al.'s VHE scheme satisfies our proposed security definitions.

In this paper, we propose two new chosen-ciphertext (CCA) secure schemes from the computational Diffie-Hellman (CDH) and bilinear computational Diffie-Hellman (BCDH) assumptions. Our first scheme from the CDH assumption is constructed by extending Cash-Kiltz-Shoup scheme. This scheme yields the same ciphertext as that of Hanaoka-Kurosawa scheme (and thus Cramer-Shoup scheme) with cheaper computational cost for encryption. However, key size is still the same as that of Hanaoka-Kurosawa scheme. Our second scheme from the BCDH assumption is constructed by extending Boyen-Mei-Waters scheme. Though this scheme requires a stronger underlying assumption than the CDH assumption, it yields significantly shorter key size for both public and secret keys. Furthermore, ciphertext length of our second scheme is the same as that of the original Boyen-Mei-Waters scheme.

This paper proposes methods for “restricting the message space” of public-key encryption, by allowing a third party to verify whether a given ciphertext does not encrypt some message which is previously specified as a “bad” (or “problematic”) message. Public-key encryption schemes are normally designed not to leak even partial information of encrypted plaintexts, but it would be problematic in some circumstances. This higher level of confidentiality could be abused, as some malicious parties could communicate with each other, or could talk about some illegal topics, using an ordinary public key encryption scheme with help of the public-key infrastructure. It would be undesirable considering the public nature of PKI. The primitive of restrictive public key encryption will help this situation, by allowing a trusted authority to specify a set of “bad” plaintexts, and allowing every third party to detect ciphertexts that encrypts some of the specified “bad” plaintext. The primitive also provides strong confidentiality (of indistinguishability type) of the plaintext when it is not specified as “bad.” In this way, a third party (possible a gateway node of the network) can examine a ciphertext (which comes from the network) includes an allowable content or not, and only when the ciphertext does not contain forbidden message, the gateway transfers the ciphertext to a next node. In this paper, we formalize the above requirements and provide two constructions that satisfied the formalization. The first construction is based on the techniques of Teranishi et al. (IEICE Trans. Fundamentals E92-A, 2009), Boudot (EUROCRYPT 2000), and Nakanishi et al. (IEICE Trans. Fundamentals E93-A, 2010), which are developed in the context of (revocation of) group signature. The other construction is based on the OR-proof technique. The first construction has better performance when very few messages are specified as bad, while the other does when almost all of messages are specified as bad (and only very few messages are allowed to encrypt).

In this paper we report on an approach inspired by Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) to provide a fault tolerant and efficient means of transferring data in dynamic environments. We investigate the problem of distributing data between a client and server by using pheromone equations. Ants choose the best source of food by selecting the strongest pheromone trail leaving the nest. The pheromone decays over-time and needs to be continually reinforced to define the optimum route in a dynamic environment. This resembles the dynamic environment for the distribution of data between clients and servers. Our approach uses readily available network and server information to construct a pheromone that determines the best server from which to download data. We demonstrate that the approach is self-optimizing and capable of adapting to dynamic changes in the environment.