Receiver and Sender Deniable Functional Encryption

in IET Information Security (2017)

Deniable encryption, first introduced by Canetti et al. (CRYPTO 1997), allows equivocation of encrypted communication. In this work we generalize its study to functional encryption (FE). Our results are ... [more ▼]

Deniable encryption, first introduced by Canetti et al. (CRYPTO 1997), allows equivocation of encrypted communication. In this work we generalize its study to functional encryption (FE). Our results are summarized as follows: We first put forward and motivate the concept of receiver deniable FE, for which we consider two models. In the first model, as previously considered by O'Neill et al. (CRYPTO 2011) in the case of identity-based encryption, a receiver gets assistance from the master authority to generate a fake secret key. In the second model, there are ``normal'' and ``deniable'' secret keys, and a receiver in possession of a deniable secret key can produce a fake but authentic-looking normal key on its own. In the first model, we show a compiler from any FE scheme for the general circuit functionality to a FE scheme having receiver deniability. In addition we show an efficient receiver deniable FE scheme for Boolean Formulae from bilinear maps. In the second (multi-distributional) model, we present a specific FE scheme for the general circuit functionality having receiver deniability. To our knowledge, a scheme in the multi-distributional model was not previously known even for the special case of identity-based encryption. Finally, we construct the first sender (non-multi-distributional) deniable FE scheme. [less ▲]

On the Achievability of Simulation-Based Security for Functional Encryption

in Advances in Cryptology - CRYPTO 2013 - 33rd Annual Cryptology Conference, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, August 18-22, 2013. Proceedings, Part II (2013)

This work attempts to clarify to what extent simulation-based security (SIM-security) is achievable for functional encryption (FE) and its relation to the weaker indistinguishability-based security (IND ... [more ▼]

This work attempts to clarify to what extent simulation-based security (SIM-security) is achievable for functional encryption (FE) and its relation to the weaker indistinguishability-based security (IND-security). Our main result is a compiler that transforms any FE scheme for the general circuit functionality (which we denote by Circuit-FE) meeting indistinguishability-based security (IND-security) to a Circuit-FE scheme meeting SIM-security, where: In the random oracle model, the resulting scheme is secure for an unbounded number of encryption and key queries, which is the strongest security level one can ask for. In the standard model, the resulting scheme is secure for a bounded number of encryption and non-adaptive key queries, but an unbounded number of adaptive key queries. This matches known impossibility results and improves upon Gorbunov et al. [CRYPTO’12] (which is only secure for non-adaptive key queries). Our compiler is inspired by the celebrated Fiat-Lapidot-Shamir paradigm [FOCS’90] for obtaining zero-knowledge proof systems from witness-indistinguishable proof systems. As it is currently unknown whether Circuit-FE meeting IND-security exists, the purpose of this result is to establish that it remains a good target for future research despite known deficiencies of IND-security [Boneh et al. – TCC’11, O’Neill – ePrint ’10]. We also give a tailored construction of SIM-secure hidden vector encryption (HVE) in composite-order bilinear groups. Finally, we revisit the known negative results for SIM-secure FE, extending them to natural weakenings of the security definition and thus providing essentially a full picture of the (in)achievability of SIM-secure FE. [less ▲]