Combining mediated and identity-based cryptography for securing e-mail

Abstract

This work aims to exploit a distinguished method of the public key cryptography which is known as Identity-Based Cryptography (IBC) to solve the usability problem of secure e-mail systems. The public key is taken from general information (such as e-mail address) of the recipient and thus does not require access to any certificate to validate the key. To increase the system strength, the identity-based cryptography is combined with mediated cryptography to enable the cancelation of any key that is being exposed or suspicious. In addition, all the operations of decryption and signature are controlled (without the ability to fraud or detect secret) by the authorized person to prevent hackers and non-authorized parties from using or manipulating of the system. This proposal includes the deployment of the combined method for Mediated Identity-Based Cryptography. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.