Abstract:

A novel broadcast encryption scheme for group communication scenarios in distributed networks is presented. In the scheme, anyone is allowed to encrypt a message and distribute it to a designated group. Each member in the designated group has the ability to independently decrypt a ciphertext. In contrast to traditional broadcast encryption, all the valid receivers in the proposed scheme compose the designated group. To take advantage of this property, a tab for the group is set and the matching private key for each member is generated. In addition, before decrypting a ciphertext, anyone in the scheme can verify the ciphertext, to ensure that the ciphertext is correct. This property is very important for large-scale group communication, as the gateway can filter incorrect ciphertext and alleviate the receiver's workload. Finally, a proof in the random oracle model is given, to show that the proposed scheme is secure against the adaptively chosen ciphertext attack.