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A Practical System for Globally Revoking the Unlinkable Pseudonyms of Unknown Users

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Information Security and Privacy (ACISP 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 4586))

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Abstract

We propose the first single sign-on system in which a user can access services using unlinkable digital pseudonyms that can all be revoked in case she abuses any one service. Our solution does not rely on key escrow: a user needs to trust only her own computing device with following our protocols in order to be assured of the unconditional untraceability and unlinkability of her pseudonyms. Our solution involves two novel ingredients: a technique for invisibly chaining the user’s pseudonyms such that all of them can be revoked on the basis of any one of them (without knowing the user’s identity with the issuer) and a sublinear-time proof that a committed value is not on a list without revealing additional information about the value. Our solution is highly practical.

This research was performed under the auspices of McGill University (School of Comp. Science) from 07-2005 until 02-2006 when the second author was visiting the first author at Credentica. Liesje Demuynck is supported by a research assistantship and travel credit from the Fund for Scientific Research, Flanders (Belgium).

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Josef Pieprzyk Hossein Ghodosi Ed Dawson

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Brands, S., Demuynck, L., De Decker, B. (2007). A Practical System for Globally Revoking the Unlinkable Pseudonyms of Unknown Users. In: Pieprzyk, J., Ghodosi, H., Dawson, E. (eds) Information Security and Privacy. ACISP 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4586. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73458-1_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73458-1_29

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-73457-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-73458-1

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