A Practical Implementation of Identity-Based Encryption Over NTRU Lattices

Abstract

An identity-based encryption scheme enables the efficient distribution of keys in a multi-user system. Such schemes are particularly attractive in resource constrained environments where critical resources such as processing power, memory and bandwidth are severely limited. This research examines the first pragmatic lattice-based IBE scheme presented by Ducas, Lyubashevsky and Prest in 2014 and brings it into the realm of practicality for use on small devices. This is the first standalone ANSI C implementation of all the software elements of the scheme with improved performance. User Key Extraction demonstrates a 180% speed increase and Encrypt and Decrypt demonstrate increases of over 500% and 1200% respectively for 80-bit security on an Intel Core i7-6700 CPU at 4.0 GHz, with similar accelerations for 192-bit security, compared with Prest’s NTL proof-of-concept implementation on an Intel Core i5-3210M CPU at 2.5 GHz. In addition, we provide a range of suggestions to further enhance performance.