Threshold traitor tracing

Abstract

This work presents threshold tracing schemes. Tracing schemes trace the source of keys which are used in pirate decoders for sensitive or proprietary data (such as pay-TV programs). Previous tracing schemes were designed to operate against any decoder which decrypts with a non-negligible success probability. We introduce threshold tracing schemes which are only designed to trace the source of keys of decoders which decrypt with probability greater than some threshold q (which is a parameter). These schemes present a dramatic reduction in the overhead compared to the previous constructions of tracing schemes. We argue that in many applications it is only required to protect against pirate decoders which have a decryption probability very close to 1 (for example, TV decoders). In such applications it is therefore very favorable to use threshold tracing schemes.