On the relations between non-interactive key distribution, identity-based encryption and trapdoor discrete log groups

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationships between identity-based non-interactive key distribution (ID-NIKD) and identity-based encryption (IBE). It provides a new security model for ID-NIKD, and a construction that converts a secure ID-NIKD scheme satisfying certain conditions into a secure IBE scheme. This conversion is used to explain the relationship between the ID-NIKD scheme of Sakai, Ohgishi and Kasahara and the IBE scheme of Boneh and Franklin. The paper then explores the construction of ID-NIKD and IBE schemes from general trapdoor discrete log groups. Two different concrete instantiations for such groups provide new, provably secure ID-NIKD and IBE schemes. These schemes are suited to applications in which the Trusted Authority is computationally well-resourced, but clients performing encryption/decryption are highly constrained. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.