A new family of authentication protocols

  • Authors:
  • Ross Anderson;Francesco Bergadano;Bruno Crispo;Jong-Hyeon Lee;Charalampos Manifavas;Roger Needham

  • Affiliations:
  • Cambridge Univ. Computer Laboratory, England;Univ. di Torinto, Italy;Univ. di Torinto, Italy;Cambridge Univ. Computer Laboratory, England;Cambridge Univ. Computer Laboratory, England;Microsoft Research, Cambridge, England

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

We present a related family of authentication and digital signature protocols based on symmetric cryptographic primitives which perform substantially better than previous constructions. Previously, one-time digital signatures based on hash functions involved hundreds of hash function computations for each signature; we show that given online access to a timestamping service, we can sign messages using only two computations of a hash function. Previously, techniques to sign infinite streams involved one such one-time signature for each message block; we show that in many realistic scenarios a small number of hash function computations is sufficient. Previously, the Diffie Hellman protocol enabled two principals to create a confidentiality key from scratch: we provide an equivalent protocol for integrity, which enables two people who do not share a secret to set up a securely serialised channel into which attackers cannot subsequently intrude. In addition to being of potential use in real applications, our constructions also raise interesting questions about the definition of a digital signature, and the relationship between integrity and authenticity.