Title: Complementary witness soundness for witness indistinguishable proof system and CCA2 public-key encryption schemes

Authors: Haixia Xu; Bao Li; Qixiang Mei

Addresses: Institute of Information Engineering, Data Assurance and Communication Security Research Center, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China ' Institute of Information Engineering, Data Assurance and Communication Security Research Center, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China ' College of Information, Guangdong Ocean University, Guangdong, China

Abstract: We introduce the notion of complementary-witness-soundness for a witness indistinguishable proof system. We then present a new general framework for public key encryption schemes, denoted as CWSWI-type encryption, based on a complementary-witness-sound witness indistinguishable (CWSWI) proof system. The construction of a CWSWI-type encryption scheme is relatively straightforward, while the security thereof against adaptive chosen ciphertext attack (denoted CCA2) can be rigorously proven. Many existing CCA2 public key encryption schemes can be interpreted as being of CWSWI-type, including the schemes of Lindell, Cramer-Shoup and Peikert-Waters. Thus, our CWSWI approach provides a novel means for designing and analysing CCA2 secure public key encryption schemes.

Keywords: witness indistinguishability; adaptive chosen ciphertext attacks; CCA2; public key encryption; information security; cryptography.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICS.2015.069211

International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 2015 Vol.7 No.1, pp.14 - 38

Published online: 05 May 2015 *

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