Proxy Cryptosystems: Delegation of the Power to Decrypt Ciphertexts

Masahiro MAMBO  Eiji OKAMOTO  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences   Vol.E80-A   No.1   pp.54-63
Publication Date: 1997/01/25
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8508
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Cryptography and Information Security)
Category: 
Keyword: 
proxy cryptosystem,  proxy,  proxy decryptor,  ciphertext transformation,  

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Summary: 
In this paper a new type of public-key cryptosystem, proxy cryptosystem, is studied. The proxy cryptosystem allows an original decryptor to transform its ciphertext to a ciphertext for a designated decryptor, proxy decryptor. Once the ciphertext transformation is executed, the proxy decryptor can compute a plaintext in place of the original decryptor. Such a cryptosystem is very useful when an entity has to deal with large amount of decrypting operation. The entity can actually speed-up the decrypting operation by authorizing multiple proxy decyptors. Concrete proxy cryptosystems are constructed for the ElGamal cryptosystem and the RSA cryptosystem. A straightforward construction of the proxy cryptosystem is given as follows. The original decryptor decrypts its ciphertext and re-encrypts an obtained plaintext under a designated proxy decryptor's public key. Then the designated proxy decryptor can read the plaintext. Our constructions are more efficient than such consecutive execution of decryption and re-encryption. Especially, the computational work done by the original decryptor is reduced in the proxy cryptosystems.