Identity-based cryptography is a type of public-key cryptography in which a publicly known string representing an individual or organization could be used as a public key. The public string could include an email address, ___domain name, or a physical IP address.
The first implementation of identity-based signatures and an email-address based PKI was developed by Adi Shamir in 1984[1], which allowed users to verify digital signatures using only public information such as the user's identifier. Under Shamir's scheme, a trusted third party would deliver the private key to the user after verification of the user's identity, with verification essentially the same as that required for issuing a certificate in a typical Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
In 2001, Boneh and Franklin devised the first practical implementation of such an Identity-Based Encryption scheme.[2]
Usage
Identity-based systems allow any party to generate a public key from a known identity value such as an ASCII string. A trusted third party, called the private key generator (PKG), generates the corresponding private keys. To operate, the PKG first publishes a master public key, and retains the corresponding master private key (referred to as master key). Given the master public key, any party can compute a public key corresponding to the identity ID by combining the master public key with the identity value. To obtain a corresponding private key, the party authorized to use the identity ID contacts the PKG, which uses the master private key to generate the private key for identity ID.
See also
References
- ^ Adi Shamir, Identity-Based Cryptosystems and Signature Schemes. Advances in Cryptology: Proceedings of CRYPTO 84, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 7:47--53, 1984
- ^ Dan Boneh and Matt Franklin (2001). "Identity-based encryption from the Weil pairing". Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO 2001. 2139/2001. Springer: 213–229. Retrieved 2010-08-26.
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