Identity-based encryption: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:11, 7 December 2003

Revision as of 02:24, 7 December 2003

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'''ID-based cryptography''' (or '''Identity based cryptography''') is a public [key cryptographicauthentication]] system in which the [[public key]] of a user is some unique information about the identity of athe user (e.g. email address).

This system works by having a trusted third party who has a secret which can be combined with a user's identity information to produce the user's secret key. The third party also produces some public information which is derived from

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Only limited work has been done in terms of formally analysing ID based cryptosystems, some of which have been recently broken.

Because any users private key can be generated through the use of the third party's secret this system has inherent [[key escrow]]. A number of variant systems have been proposed which remove the escrow including [[Certificate-based encryption]], [[Secure Key Issuing Cryptography]] and [[Certificateless Cryptography]].

One of this systems major advantages is that if there are only a finite number of users, after all users have been issued with keys the third party's secret can be destroyed. This can take place because this system assumes that once issued keys are always valid (as this basic system lacks an method of [[key revocation]]). The majority of derivatives of this system which have key revocation loose this advantage.

==References==