Identity-based cryptography: Difference between revisions

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'''Identity-based cryptography''' is a type of [[public-key cryptography]] in which a publicly known string representing an individual or organization is 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 [[public-key infrastructure]] (PKI) was developed by [[Adi Shamir]] in 1984,<ref>Adi Shamir, [http://www.iseca.org/modules/mydownloads/visit.php?cid=56&lid=33 Identity-Based Cryptosystems and Signature Schemes]. ''Advances in Cryptology: Proceedings of CRYPTO 84, Lecture Notes in Computer Science'', 7:47--53, 1984</ref>, 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 [[public-key certificate|certificate]] in a typical PKI.

Shamir similarly proposed identity-based encryption, which appeared particularly attractive since there was no need to acquire an identity's public key prior to encryption. However, he was unable to come up with a concrete solution, and identity-based encryption remained an open problem for many years. The first practical implementation was finally devised by Boneh and Franklin in 2001.<ref>

{{cite journal |

| last1 = Dan | first1 = Boneh

| last2 = Matt | first2 = Franklin

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| volume = 2139/2001 | pages = 213–229

| accessdate = 2010-08-26

| urlid = http://{{citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=|10.1.1.66.1131&rep=rep1&type=pdf}}</ref>

}}</ref>

==Usage==