Paper 2018/242

A New Constant-size Accountable Ring Signature Scheme Without Random Oracles

Sudhakar Kumawat and Souradyuti Paul

Abstract

Accountable ring signature (ARS), introduced by Xu and Yung (CARDIS 2004), combines many useful properties of ring and group signatures. In particular, the signer in an ARS scheme has the flexibility of choosing an ad hoc group of users, and signing on their behalf (like a ring signature). Furthermore, the signer can designate an opener who may later reveal his identity, if required (like a group signature). In 2015, Bootle et al. (ESORICS 2015) formalized the notion and gave an efficient construction for ARS with signature-size logarithmic in the size of the ring. Their scheme is proven to be secure in the random oracle model. Recently, Russell et al. (ESORICS 2016) gave a construction with constant signature-size that is secure in the standard model. Their scheme is based on $q$-type assumptions ($q$-SDH). In this paper, we give a new construction for ARS having the following properties: signature is constant-sized, secure in the standard model, and based on indistinguishability obfuscation iO and one-way functions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first iO-based ARS scheme. Independent of this, our work can be viewed as a new application of puncturable programming and hidden sparse trigger techniques introduced by Sahai and Waters (STOC 2014) to design iO-based deniable encryption.