Pub. online:19 Aug 2024Type:Research ArticleOpen Access
Journal:Informatica
Volume 35, Issue 3 (2024), pp. 601–616
Abstract
One of the main trends for the monitoring and control of business processes is to implement these processes via private blockchain systems. These systems must ensure data privacy and verifiability for the entire network here denoted by ‘Net’. In addition, every business activity should be declared to a trusted third party (TTP), such as an Audit Authority (AA), for tax declaration and collection purposes.
We present a solution for a confidential and verifiable realization of transactions based on the Unspent Transaction Output (UTxO) paradigm. This means that the total sum of transaction inputs (incomes) $In$ must be equal to the total sum of transaction outputs (expenses) $Ex$, satisfying the balance equation $In=Ex$. Privacy in a private blockchain must be achieved through the encryption of actual transaction values. However, it is crucial that all participants in the network be able to verify the validity of the transaction balance equation. This poses a challenge with probabilistically encrypted data. Moreover, the inputs and outputs are encrypted with different public keys. With the introduction of the AA, the number of different public keys for encryption can be reduced to two. Incomes are encrypted with the Receiver’s public key and expenses with the AA’s public key.
The novelty of our realization lies in taking additively-multiplicative, homomorphic ElGamal encryption and integrating it with a proposed paradigm of modified Schnorr identification providing a non-interactive zero-knowledge proof (NIZKP) using a cryptographically secure h-function. Introducing the AA as a structural element in a blockchain system based on the UTxO enables effective verification of encrypted transaction data for the Net. This is possible because the proposed NIZKP is able to prove the equivalency of two ciphertexts encrypted with two different public keys and different actors.
This integration allows all users on the Net to check the UTxO-based transaction balance equation on encrypted data. The security considerations of the proposed solution are presented.
Journal:Informatica
Volume 34, Issue 3 (2023), pp. 603–616
Abstract
The article presents the tax declaration scheme using blockchain confidential transactions based on the modified ElGamal encryption providing additively-homomorphic property. Transactions are based on the unspent transactions output (UTxO) paradigm allowing to effectively represent digital asset of cryptocurrencies in e-wallets and to perform financial operations. The main actors around transaction are specified, include money senders, receivers, transaction creator, Audit Authority (AA) and Net of users. A general transaction model with M inputs and N outputs is created, providing transaction amount confidentiality and verifiability for all actors with different levels of available information.
The transaction model allows Net to verify the validity of a transaction, having access only to encrypted transaction data. Each money receiver is able to decrypt and verify the actual sum that is transferred by the sender. AA is provided with actual transaction values and is able to supervise the tax payments for business actors. Such information allows to verify the honesty of transaction data for each user role.
The security analysis of the scheme is presented, referencing to ElGamal security assumptions. The coalition attack is formulated and prevention of this attack is proposed. It is shown that transaction creation is effective and requires almost the same resources as multiple ElGamal encryption. In addition to ElGamal encryption of all income and expenses, an additional exponentiation operation with small exponents, representing transferred sums, is needed. AA computation resources are slightly larger, since they have to be adequate for search procedures in the small range from 1 to ${2^{32}}-1=4294967295$ for individual money transfers.
Pub. online:1 Jan 2017Type:Research ArticleOpen Access
Journal:Informatica
Volume 28, Issue 1 (2017), pp. 193–214
Abstract
To provide better overall performance, identity (ID)-based signcryption (IBSC) has been constructed by combining ID-based signature (IBS) and ID-based encryption (IBE) in a secure manner. Undoubtedly, the IBSC fulfills the authentication and the confidentiality by signature and encryption, respectively. All the previously proposed IBSC schemes are inseparable in the sense that the two-layer sign-then-encrypt procedure must be performed only by the same entity. However, the entities, such as wireless sensors and smart cards, are resource-constrained and become time consuming in executing the two-layer sign-then-encrypt procedure. Nowadays, the usage of mobile cloud computing is gaining expanding interest which provides scalable and virtualized services over the Internet or wireless networks while users with resource-constrained devices can enjoy the advantages of mobile cloud computing environments. Hence, we aim to reduce the computational cost for resource-constrained devices by employing a third party. In this article, we present the first separable ID-based signcryption (SIBSC) scheme in which the signing and encrypting layers are performed by the device and a third party, respectively. Under the computation Diffie–Hellman (CDH) and bilinear Diffie–Hellman (BDH) assumptions, we demonstrate that the proposed SIBSC scheme offers the provable security of authentication and confidentiality while retaining communication performance.