Hybrid encryption scheme using terminal fingerprint and its application to attribute-based encryption without key misuse

Abstract

Internet services make sharing digital contents faster and easier but raise an issue of illegal copying and distribution of those digital contents at the same time. A lot of public key encryption schemes solve this issue. However, the secret key is not completely protected i.e. these kinds of encryption methods do not prevent illegal copying and distribution of secret keys. In this paper, we propose a hybrid encryption scheme that employ terminal fingerprints. This scheme is a template to avoid such misuse of secret keys, and can be applied to, for example, attribute-based encryption schemes. There terminal fingerprint information is used to create a second encryption key and secret key. Since the terminal fingerprint is assumed to be unchangeable and unknowable, we ensure that our secret keys are valid in the terminal where such secret keys were created.