Linkable and traceable anonymous authentication with fine-grained access control

Abstract

To prevent misuse of privacy, numerous anonymous authentication schemes with linkability and/or traceability have been proposed to ensure different types of accountabilities. Previous schemes cannot simultaneously achieve public linking and tracing while holding access control, therefore, a new tool named linkable and traceable anonymous authentication with fine-grained access control (LTAA-FGAC) is offered, which is designed to satisfy:(i) access control, i.e., only authorized users who meet a designated authentication policy are approved to authenticate messages;(ii) public linkability, i.e., anyone can tell whether two authentications with respect to a common identifier are created by an identical user; (iii) public traceability, i.e., everyone has the ability to deduce a double-authentication user’s identity from two linked authentications without the help of other parties. We formally define the basic security requirements for the new tool, and also give a generic construction so as to satisfy these requirements. Then, we present a formal security proof and an implementation of our proposed LTAA-FGAC scheme.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

anonymous authentication / access control / public linkability / public traceability

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