---
OA_place: repository
OA_type: green
_id: '21262'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "Continuous Group Key Agreement (CGKA) is the primitive underlying secure
    group messaging. It allows a large group of N users to maintain a shared secret
    key that is frequently rotated by the\r\ngroup members in order to achieve forward
    secrecy and post compromise security. The group messaging scheme Messaging Layer
    Security (MLS) standardized by the IETF makes use of a CGKA called TreeKEM which
    arranges the N group members in a binary tree. Here, each node is associated with
    a public-key, each user is assigned one of the leaves, and a user knows the corresponding
    secret keys from their leaf to the root. To update the key material known to them,
    a user must just replace keys at log(N) nodes, which requires them to create and
    upload log(N) ciphertexts. Such updates must be processed sequentially by all
    users, which for large groups is impractical. To allow for concurrent updates,
    TreeKEM uses the “propose and commit” paradigm, where multiple users can concurrently
    propose to update (by just sampling a fresh leaf key), and a single user can then
    commit to all proposals at once. Unfortunately, this process destroys the binary
    tree structure as the tree gets pruned and some nodes must be “blanked” at the
    cost of increasing the in-degree of others, which makes the commit operation,
    as well as, future commits more costly. In the worst case, the update cost (in
    terms of uploaded ciphertexts) per user can grow from log(N) to Ω(N). In this
    work we provide two main contributions. First, we show that MLS’ communication
    complexity is bad not only in the worst case but also if the proposers and committers
    are chosen at random: even if there’s just one update proposal for every commit
    the expected cost is already over √N, and it approaches N as this ratio changes
    towards more proposals. Our second contribution is a new variant of propose and
    commit for\r\nTreeKEM which for moderate amounts of update proposals per commit
    provably achieves an update cost of Θ(log(N)) assuming the proposers and committers
    are chosen at random."
acknowledgement: B. Auerbach and B. Erol—Conducted part of this work at ISTA.
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Miguel
  full_name: Cueto Noval, Miguel
  id: ffc563a3-f6e0-11ea-865d-e3cce03d17cc
  last_name: Cueto Noval
  orcid: 0000-0002-2505-4246
- first_name: Boran
  full_name: Erol, Boran
  last_name: Erol
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
citation:
  ama: 'Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, Erol B, Pietrzak KZ. Continuous group-key agreement:
    Concurrent updates without pruning. In: <i>45th Annual International Cryptology
    Conference</i>. Vol 16007. Springer Nature; 2025:141-172. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5">10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5</a>'
  apa: 'Auerbach, B., Cueto Noval, M., Erol, B., &#38; Pietrzak, K. Z. (2025). Continuous
    group-key agreement: Concurrent updates without pruning. In <i>45th Annual International
    Cryptology Conference</i> (Vol. 16007, pp. 141–172). Santa Barbara, CA, United
    States: Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5</a>'
  chicago: 'Auerbach, Benedikt, Miguel Cueto Noval, Boran Erol, and Krzysztof Z Pietrzak.
    “Continuous Group-Key Agreement: Concurrent Updates without Pruning.” In <i>45th
    Annual International Cryptology Conference</i>, 16007:141–72. Springer Nature,
    2025. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5</a>.'
  ieee: 'B. Auerbach, M. Cueto Noval, B. Erol, and K. Z. Pietrzak, “Continuous group-key
    agreement: Concurrent updates without pruning,” in <i>45th Annual International
    Cryptology Conference</i>, Santa Barbara, CA, United States, 2025, vol. 16007,
    pp. 141–172.'
  ista: 'Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, Erol B, Pietrzak KZ. 2025. Continuous group-key
    agreement: Concurrent updates without pruning. 45th Annual International Cryptology
    Conference. CRYPTO: International Cryptology Conference, LNCS, vol. 16007, 141–172.'
  mla: 'Auerbach, Benedikt, et al. “Continuous Group-Key Agreement: Concurrent Updates
    without Pruning.” <i>45th Annual International Cryptology Conference</i>, vol.
    16007, Springer Nature, 2025, pp. 141–72, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5">10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5</a>.'
  short: B. Auerbach, M. Cueto Noval, B. Erol, K.Z. Pietrzak, in:, 45th Annual International
    Cryptology Conference, Springer Nature, 2025, pp. 141–172.
conference:
  end_date: 2025-08-21
  location: Santa Barbara, CA, United States
  name: 'CRYPTO: International Cryptology Conference'
  start_date: 2025-08-17
date_created: 2026-02-17T07:41:04Z
date_published: 2025-08-17T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-02-18T07:36:42Z
day: '17'
department:
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-01913-4_5
intvolume: '     16007'
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/1035
month: '08'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 141-172
publication: 45th Annual International Cryptology Conference
publication_identifier:
  eisbn:
  - '9783032019134'
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783032019127'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
status: public
title: 'Continuous group-key agreement: Concurrent updates without pruning'
type: conference
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 16007
year: '2025'
...
---
OA_place: repository
OA_type: green
_id: '18702'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: 'In this work we prove lower bounds on the (communication) cost of maintaining
    a shared key among a dynamic group of users. Being “dynamic” means one can add
    and remove users from the group. This captures important protocols like multicast
    encryption (ME) and continuous group-key agreement (CGKA), which is the primitive
    underlying many group messaging applications. We prove our bounds in a combinatorial
    setting where the state of the protocol progresses in rounds. The state of the
    protocol in each round is captured by a set system, with each of its elements
    specifying a set of users who share a secret key. We show this combinatorial model
    implies bounds in symbolic models for ME and CGKA that capture, as building blocks,
    PRGs, PRFs, dual PRFs, secret sharing, and symmetric encryption in the setting
    of ME, and PRGs, PRFs, dual PRFs, secret sharing, public-key encryption, and key-updatable
    public-key encryption in the setting of CGKA. The models are related to the ones
    used by Micciancio and Panjwani (Eurocrypt’04) and Bienstock et al. (TCC’20) to
    analyze ME and CGKA, respectively. We prove – using the Bollobás’ Set Pairs Inequality
    – that the cost (number of uploaded ciphertexts) for replacing a set of d users
    in a group of size n is Ω(dln(n/d)). Our lower bound is asymptotically tight and
    both improves on a bound of Ω(d) by Bienstock et al. (TCC’20), and generalizes
    a result by Micciancio and Panjwani (Eurocrypt’04), who proved a lower bound of
    Ω(log(n)) for d=1. '
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Michael
  full_name: Anastos, Michael
  id: 0b2a4358-bb35-11ec-b7b9-e3279b593dbb
  last_name: Anastos
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Mirza Ahad
  full_name: Baig, Mirza Ahad
  id: 3EDE6DE4-AA5A-11E9-986D-341CE6697425
  last_name: Baig
- first_name: Miguel
  full_name: Cueto Noval, Miguel
  id: ffc563a3-f6e0-11ea-865d-e3cce03d17cc
  last_name: Cueto Noval
  orcid: 0000-0002-2505-4246
- first_name: Matthew Alan
  full_name: Kwan, Matthew Alan
  id: 5fca0887-a1db-11eb-95d1-ca9d5e0453b3
  last_name: Kwan
  orcid: 0000-0002-4003-7567
- first_name: Guillermo
  full_name: Pascual Perez, Guillermo
  id: 2D7ABD02-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pascual Perez
  orcid: 0000-0001-8630-415X
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
citation:
  ama: 'Anastos M, Auerbach B, Baig MA, et al. The cost of maintaining keys in dynamic
    groups with applications to multicast encryption and group messaging. In: <i>22nd
    International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>. Vol 15364. Springer Nature;
    2024:413-443. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14">10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14</a>'
  apa: 'Anastos, M., Auerbach, B., Baig, M. A., Cueto Noval, M., Kwan, M. A., Pascual
    Perez, G., &#38; Pietrzak, K. Z. (2024). The cost of maintaining keys in dynamic
    groups with applications to multicast encryption and group messaging. In <i>22nd
    International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i> (Vol. 15364, pp. 413–443).
    Milan, Italy: Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14</a>'
  chicago: Anastos, Michael, Benedikt Auerbach, Mirza Ahad Baig, Miguel Cueto Noval,
    Matthew Alan Kwan, Guillermo Pascual Perez, and Krzysztof Z Pietrzak. “The Cost
    of Maintaining Keys in Dynamic Groups with Applications to Multicast Encryption
    and Group Messaging.” In <i>22nd International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>,
    15364:413–43. Springer Nature, 2024. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14</a>.
  ieee: M. Anastos <i>et al.</i>, “The cost of maintaining keys in dynamic groups
    with applications to multicast encryption and group messaging,” in <i>22nd International
    Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>, Milan, Italy, 2024, vol. 15364, pp.
    413–443.
  ista: 'Anastos M, Auerbach B, Baig MA, Cueto Noval M, Kwan MA, Pascual Perez G,
    Pietrzak KZ. 2024. The cost of maintaining keys in dynamic groups with applications
    to multicast encryption and group messaging. 22nd International Conference on
    Theory of Cryptography. TCC: Theory of Cryptography, LNCS, vol. 15364, 413–443.'
  mla: Anastos, Michael, et al. “The Cost of Maintaining Keys in Dynamic Groups with Applications
    to Multicast Encryption and Group Messaging.” <i>22nd International Conference
    on Theory of Cryptography</i>, vol. 15364, Springer Nature, 2024, pp. 413–43,
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14">10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14</a>.
  short: M. Anastos, B. Auerbach, M.A. Baig, M. Cueto Noval, M.A. Kwan, G. Pascual
    Perez, K.Z. Pietrzak, in:, 22nd International Conference on Theory of Cryptography,
    Springer Nature, 2024, pp. 413–443.
conference:
  end_date: 2024-12-06
  location: Milan, Italy
  name: 'TCC: Theory of Cryptography'
  start_date: 2024-12-02
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2024-12-22T23:01:47Z
date_published: 2024-12-02T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2025-12-02T13:55:46Z
day: '02'
department:
- _id: MaKw
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-78011-0_14
external_id:
  isi:
  - '001545628900014'
intvolume: '     15364'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/1097
month: '12'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 413-443
publication: 22nd International Conference on Theory of Cryptography
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783031780103'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: The cost of maintaining keys in dynamic groups with applications to multicast
  encryption and group messaging
type: conference
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 15364
year: '2024'
...
---
_id: '17051'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "Memory-hard functions (MHF) are functions whose evaluation provably requires\r\na
    lot of memory. While MHFs are an unkeyed primitive, it is natural to consider
    the\r\nnotion of trapdoor MHFs (TMHFs). A TMHF is like an MHF, but when sampling\r\nthe
    public parameters one also samples a trapdoor which allows evaluating the\r\nfunction
    much cheaper.\r\nBiryukov and Perrin (Asiacrypt’17) were the first to consider
    TMHFs and put\r\nforth a candidate TMHF construction called Diodon that is based
    on the Scrypt\r\nMHF (Percival, BSDCan’09). To allow for a trapdoor, Scrypt’s
    initial hash chain\r\nis replaced by a sequence of squares in a group of unknown
    order where the order of\r\nthe group is the trapdoor. For a length n sequence
    of squares and a group of order\r\nN, Diodon’s cumulative memory complexity (CMC)
    is O(n2log N) without the\r\ntrapdoor and O(n log(n) log(N)2) with knowledge of
    it.\r\nWhile Scrypt is proven to be optimally memory-hard in the random oracle\r\nmodel
    (Alwen et al., Eurocrypt’17), Diodon’s memory-hardness has not been\r\nproven
    so far. In this work, we fill this gap by rigorously analyzing a specific\r\ninstantiation
    of Diodon. We show that its CMC is lower bounded by Ω( n2log nlog N)\r\nwhich
    almost matches the upper bound. Our proof is based Alwen et al.’s lower\r\nbound
    on Scrypt’s CMC but requires non-trivial modifications due to the algebraic\r\nstructure
    of Diodon. Most importantly, our analysis involves a more elaborate\r\ncompression
    argument and a solvability criterion for certain systems of Diophantine\r\nequations."
acknowledgement: We thank the Eurocrypt reviewers for their thorough review and for
  pointing out related works. This research was funded in whole or in part by the
  Austrian Science Fund (FWF) 10.55776/F85.
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Christoph Ullrich
  full_name: Günther, Christoph Ullrich
  id: ec98511c-eb8e-11eb-b029-edd25d7271a1
  last_name: Günther
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
citation:
  ama: 'Auerbach B, Günther CU, Pietrzak KZ. Trapdoor memory-hard functions. In: <i>43rd
    Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic
    Techniques</i>. Vol 14653. Springer Nature; 2024:315-344. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11">10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11</a>'
  apa: 'Auerbach, B., Günther, C. U., &#38; Pietrzak, K. Z. (2024). Trapdoor memory-hard
    functions. In <i>43rd Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications
    of Cryptographic Techniques</i> (Vol. 14653, pp. 315–344). Zurich, Switzerland:
    Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11</a>'
  chicago: Auerbach, Benedikt, Christoph Ullrich Günther, and Krzysztof Z Pietrzak.
    “Trapdoor Memory-Hard Functions.” In <i>43rd Annual International Conference on
    the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques</i>, 14653:315–44. Springer
    Nature, 2024. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11</a>.
  ieee: B. Auerbach, C. U. Günther, and K. Z. Pietrzak, “Trapdoor memory-hard functions,”
    in <i>43rd Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic
    Techniques</i>, Zurich, Switzerland, 2024, vol. 14653, pp. 315–344.
  ista: 'Auerbach B, Günther CU, Pietrzak KZ. 2024. Trapdoor memory-hard functions.
    43rd Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic
    Techniques. EUROCRYPT: Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, LNCS,
    vol. 14653, 315–344.'
  mla: Auerbach, Benedikt, et al. “Trapdoor Memory-Hard Functions.” <i>43rd Annual
    International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques</i>,
    vol. 14653, Springer Nature, 2024, pp. 315–44, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11">10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11</a>.
  short: B. Auerbach, C.U. Günther, K.Z. Pietrzak, in:, 43rd Annual International
    Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, Springer
    Nature, 2024, pp. 315–344.
conference:
  end_date: 2024-05-30
  location: Zurich, Switzerland
  name: 'EUROCRYPT: Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques'
  start_date: 2024-05-26
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2024-05-26T22:00:58Z
date_published: 2024-05-01T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2025-09-08T07:35:40Z
day: '01'
department:
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-58734-4_11
external_id:
  isi:
  - '001274940200011'
intvolume: '     14653'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/312
month: '05'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 315-344
project:
- _id: 34a34d57-11ca-11ed-8bc3-a2688a8724e1
  grant_number: F8509
  name: Security and Privacy by Design for Complex Systems
publication: 43rd Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of
  Cryptographic Techniques
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783031587337'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Trapdoor memory-hard functions
type: conference
user_id: 317138e5-6ab7-11ef-aa6d-ffef3953e345
volume: 14653
year: '2024'
...
---
_id: '18086'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "Abstract. Continuous group key agreement (CGKA) allows a group of\r\nusers
    to maintain a continuously updated shared key in an asynchronous\r\nsetting where
    parties only come online sporadically and their messages\r\nare relayed by an
    untrusted server. CGKA captures the basic primitive\r\nunderlying group messaging
    schemes.\r\nCurrent solutions including TreeKEM (“Messaging Layer Security”\r\n(MLS)
    IETF RFC 9420) cannot handle concurrent requests while retaining low communication
    complexity. The exception being CoCoA, which\r\nis concurrent while having extremely
    low communication complexity (in\r\ngroups of size n and for m concurrent updates
    the communication per\r\nuser is log(n), i.e., independent of m). The main downside
    of CoCoA\r\nis that in groups of size n, users might have to do up to log(n) update\r\nrequests
    to the server to ensure their (potentially corrupted) key material has been refreshed.\r\nIn
    this work we present a “fast healing” concurrent CGKA protocol,\r\nnamed DeCAF,
    where users will heal after at most log(t) requests, with\r\nt being the number
    of corrupted users. While also suitable for the standard central-server setting,
    our protocol is particularly interesting for\r\nrealizing decentralized group
    messaging, where protocol messages (add,\r\nremove, update) are being posted on
    some append-only data structure\r\nrather than sent to a server. In this setting,
    concurrency is crucial once\r\nthe rate of requests exceeds, say, the rate at
    which new blocks are added\r\nto a blockchain.\r\nIn the central-server setting,
    CoCoA (the only alternative with concurrency, sub-linear communication and basic
    post-compromise security)\r\nenjoys much lower download communication. However,
    in the decentralized setting – where there is no server which can craft specific
    messages\r\nfor different users to reduce their download communication – our protocol\r\nsignificantly
    outperforms CoCoA. DeCAF heals in fewer epochs (log(t)\r\nvs. log(n)) while incurring
    a similar per epoch per user communication\r\ncost."
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Joel F
  full_name: Alwen, Joel F
  id: 2A8DFA8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Alwen
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Miguel
  full_name: Cueto Noval, Miguel
  id: ffc563a3-f6e0-11ea-865d-e3cce03d17cc
  last_name: Cueto Noval
  orcid: 0000-0002-2505-4246
- first_name: Karen
  full_name: Klein, Karen
  id: 3E83A2F8-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Klein
- first_name: Guillermo
  full_name: Pascual Perez, Guillermo
  id: 2D7ABD02-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pascual Perez
  orcid: 0000-0001-8630-415X
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
citation:
  ama: 'Alwen JF, Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, Klein K, Pascual Perez G, Pietrzak KZ.
    DeCAF: Decentralizable CGKA with fast healing. In: Galdi C, Phan DH, eds. <i>Security
    and Cryptography for Networks: 14th International Conference</i>. Vol 14974. Cham:
    Springer Nature; 2024:294–313. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14">10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14</a>'
  apa: 'Alwen, J. F., Auerbach, B., Cueto Noval, M., Klein, K., Pascual Perez, G.,
    &#38; Pietrzak, K. Z. (2024). DeCAF: Decentralizable CGKA with fast healing. In
    C. Galdi &#38; D. H. Phan (Eds.), <i>Security and Cryptography for Networks: 14th
    International Conference</i> (Vol. 14974, pp. 294–313). Cham: Springer Nature.
    <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14</a>'
  chicago: 'Alwen, Joel F, Benedikt Auerbach, Miguel Cueto Noval, Karen Klein, Guillermo
    Pascual Perez, and Krzysztof Z Pietrzak. “DeCAF: Decentralizable CGKA with Fast
    Healing.” In <i>Security and Cryptography for Networks: 14th International Conference</i>,
    edited by Clemente Galdi and Duong Hieu Phan, 14974:294–313. Cham: Springer Nature,
    2024. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14</a>.'
  ieee: 'J. F. Alwen, B. Auerbach, M. Cueto Noval, K. Klein, G. Pascual Perez, and
    K. Z. Pietrzak, “DeCAF: Decentralizable CGKA with fast healing,” in <i>Security
    and Cryptography for Networks: 14th International Conference</i>, Amalfi, Italy,
    2024, vol. 14974, pp. 294–313.'
  ista: 'Alwen JF, Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, Klein K, Pascual Perez G, Pietrzak KZ.
    2024. DeCAF: Decentralizable CGKA with fast healing. Security and Cryptography
    for Networks: 14th International Conference. SCN: Security and Cryptography for
    Networks, LNCS, vol. 14974, 294–313.'
  mla: 'Alwen, Joel F., et al. “DeCAF: Decentralizable CGKA with Fast Healing.” <i>Security
    and Cryptography for Networks: 14th International Conference</i>, edited by Clemente
    Galdi and Duong Hieu Phan, vol. 14974, Springer Nature, 2024, pp. 294–313, doi:<a
    href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14">10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14</a>.'
  short: 'J.F. Alwen, B. Auerbach, M. Cueto Noval, K. Klein, G. Pascual Perez, K.Z.
    Pietrzak, in:, C. Galdi, D.H. Phan (Eds.), Security and Cryptography for Networks:
    14th International Conference, Springer Nature, Cham, 2024, pp. 294–313.'
conference:
  end_date: 2024-09-13
  location: Amalfi, Italy
  name: 'SCN: Security and Cryptography for Networks'
  start_date: 2024-09-11
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2024-09-18T11:35:14Z
date_published: 2024-09-10T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-04-07T13:01:26Z
day: '10'
department:
- _id: GradSch
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-71073-5_14
editor:
- first_name: Clemente
  full_name: Galdi, Clemente
  last_name: Galdi
- first_name: Duong Hieu
  full_name: Phan, Duong Hieu
  last_name: Phan
external_id:
  isi:
  - '001330408000014'
intvolume: '     14974'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
month: '09'
oa_version: None
page: 294–313
place: Cham
publication: 'Security and Cryptography for Networks: 14th International Conference'
publication_identifier:
  eisbn:
  - '9783031710735'
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783031710728'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
related_material:
  record:
  - id: '18088'
    relation: dissertation_contains
    status: public
status: public
title: 'DeCAF: Decentralizable CGKA with fast healing'
type: conference
user_id: 317138e5-6ab7-11ef-aa6d-ffef3953e345
volume: 14974
year: '2024'
...
---
_id: '14691'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "Continuous Group-Key Agreement (CGKA) allows a group of users to maintain
    a shared key. It is the fundamental cryptographic primitive underlying group messaging
    schemes and related protocols, most notably TreeKEM, the underlying key agreement
    protocol of the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, a standard for group
    messaging by the IETF. CKGA works in an asynchronous setting where parties only
    occasionally must come online, and their messages are relayed by an untrusted
    server. The most expensive operation provided by CKGA is that which allows for
    a user to refresh their key material in order to achieve forward secrecy (old
    messages are secure when a user is compromised) and post-compromise security (users
    can heal from compromise). One caveat of early CGKA protocols is that these update
    operations had to be performed sequentially, with any user wanting to update their
    key material having had to receive and process all previous updates. Late versions
    of TreeKEM do allow for concurrent updates at the cost of a communication overhead
    per update message that is linear in the number of updating parties. This was
    shown to be indeed necessary when achieving PCS in just two rounds of communication
    by [Bienstock et al. TCC’20].\r\nThe recently proposed protocol CoCoA [Alwen et
    al. Eurocrypt’22], however, shows that this overhead can be reduced if PCS requirements
    are relaxed, and only a logarithmic number of rounds is required. The natural
    question, thus, is whether CoCoA is optimal in this setting.\r\nIn this work we
    answer this question, providing a lower bound on the cost (concretely, the amount
    of data to be uploaded to the server) for CGKA protocols that heal in an arbitrary
    k number of rounds, that shows that CoCoA is very close to optimal. Additionally,
    we extend CoCoA to heal in an arbitrary number of rounds, and propose a modification
    of it, with a reduced communication cost for certain k.\r\nWe prove our bound
    in a combinatorial setting where the state of the protocol progresses in rounds,
    and the state of the protocol in each round is captured by a set system, each
    set specifying a set of users who share a secret key. We show this combinatorial
    model is equivalent to a symbolic model capturing building blocks including PRFs
    and public-key encryption, related to the one used by Bienstock et al.\r\nOur
    lower bound is of order k•n1+1/(k-1)/log(k), where 2≤k≤log(n) is the number of
    updates per user the protocol requires to heal. This generalizes the n2 bound
    for k=2 from Bienstock et al.. This bound almost matches the k⋅n1+2/(k-1) or k2⋅n1+1/(k-1)
    efficiency we get for the variants of the CoCoA protocol also introduced in this
    paper."
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Miguel
  full_name: Cueto Noval, Miguel
  id: ffc563a3-f6e0-11ea-865d-e3cce03d17cc
  last_name: Cueto Noval
  orcid: 0000-0002-2505-4246
- first_name: Guillermo
  full_name: Pascual Perez, Guillermo
  id: 2D7ABD02-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pascual Perez
  orcid: 0000-0001-8630-415X
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
citation:
  ama: 'Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, Pascual Perez G, Pietrzak KZ. On the cost of post-compromise
    security in concurrent Continuous Group-Key Agreement. In: <i>21st International
    Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>. Vol 14371. Springer Nature; 2023:271-300.
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10">10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10</a>'
  apa: 'Auerbach, B., Cueto Noval, M., Pascual Perez, G., &#38; Pietrzak, K. Z. (2023).
    On the cost of post-compromise security in concurrent Continuous Group-Key Agreement.
    In <i>21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i> (Vol. 14371,
    pp. 271–300). Taipei, Taiwan: Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10</a>'
  chicago: Auerbach, Benedikt, Miguel Cueto Noval, Guillermo Pascual Perez, and Krzysztof
    Z Pietrzak. “On the Cost of Post-Compromise Security in Concurrent Continuous
    Group-Key Agreement.” In <i>21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>,
    14371:271–300. Springer Nature, 2023. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10</a>.
  ieee: B. Auerbach, M. Cueto Noval, G. Pascual Perez, and K. Z. Pietrzak, “On the cost
    of post-compromise security in concurrent Continuous Group-Key Agreement,” in
    <i>21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>, Taipei, Taiwan,
    2023, vol. 14371, pp. 271–300.
  ista: 'Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, Pascual Perez G, Pietrzak KZ. 2023. On the cost
    of post-compromise security in concurrent Continuous Group-Key Agreement. 21st
    International Conference on Theory of Cryptography. TCC: Theory of Cryptography,
    LNCS, vol. 14371, 271–300.'
  mla: Auerbach, Benedikt, et al. “On the Cost of Post-Compromise Security in Concurrent
    Continuous Group-Key Agreement.” <i>21st International Conference on Theory of
    Cryptography</i>, vol. 14371, Springer Nature, 2023, pp. 271–300, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10">10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10</a>.
  short: B. Auerbach, M. Cueto Noval, G. Pascual Perez, K.Z. Pietrzak, in:, 21st International
    Conference on Theory of Cryptography, Springer Nature, 2023, pp. 271–300.
conference:
  end_date: 2023-12-02
  location: Taipei, Taiwan
  name: 'TCC: Theory of Cryptography'
  start_date: 2023-11-29
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2023-12-17T23:00:53Z
date_published: 2023-11-27T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2025-09-09T13:42:16Z
day: '27'
department:
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_10
external_id:
  isi:
  - '001160724400010'
intvolume: '     14371'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1123
month: '11'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 271-300
publication: 21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783031486203'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: On the cost of post-compromise security in concurrent Continuous Group-Key
  Agreement
type: conference
user_id: 317138e5-6ab7-11ef-aa6d-ffef3953e345
volume: 14371
year: '2023'
...
---
_id: '14692'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "The generic-group model (GGM) aims to capture algorithms working over groups
    of prime order that only rely on the group operation, but do not exploit any additional
    structure given by the concrete implementation of the group. In it, it is possible
    to prove information-theoretic lower bounds on the hardness of problems like the
    discrete logarithm (DL) or computational Diffie-Hellman (CDH). Thus, since its
    introduction, it has served as a valuable tool to assess the concrete security
    provided by cryptographic schemes based on such problems. A work on the related
    algebraic-group model (AGM) introduced a method, used by many subsequent works,
    to adapt GGM lower bounds for one problem to another, by means of conceptually
    simple reductions.\r\nIn this work, we propose an alternative approach to extend
    GGM bounds from one problem to another. Following an idea by Yun [EC15], we show
    that, in the GGM, the security of a large class of problems can be reduced to
    that of geometric search-problems. By reducing the security of the resulting geometric-search
    problems to variants of the search-by-hypersurface problem, for which information
    theoretic lower bounds exist, we give alternative proofs of several results that
    used the AGM approach.\r\nThe main advantage of our approach is that our reduction
    from geometric search-problems works, as well, for the GGM with preprocessing
    (more precisely the bit-fixing GGM introduced by Coretti, Dodis and Guo [Crypto18]).
    As a consequence, this opens up the possibility of transferring preprocessing
    GGM bounds from one problem to another, also by means of simple reductions. Concretely,
    we prove novel preprocessing bounds on the hardness of the d-strong discrete logarithm,
    the d-strong Diffie-Hellman inversion, and multi-instance CDH problems, as well
    as a large class of Uber assumptions. Additionally, our approach applies to Shoup’s
    GGM without additional restrictions on the query behavior of the adversary, while
    the recent works of Zhang, Zhou, and Katz [AC22] and Zhandry [Crypto22] highlight
    that this is not the case for the AGM approach."
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Charlotte
  full_name: Hoffmann, Charlotte
  id: 0f78d746-dc7d-11ea-9b2f-83f92091afe7
  last_name: Hoffmann
  orcid: 0000-0003-2027-5549
- first_name: Guillermo
  full_name: Pascual Perez, Guillermo
  id: 2D7ABD02-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pascual Perez
  orcid: 0000-0001-8630-415X
citation:
  ama: 'Auerbach B, Hoffmann C, Pascual Perez G. Generic-group lower bounds via reductions
    between geometric-search problems: With and without preprocessing. In: <i>21st
    International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>. Vol 14371. Springer Nature;
    2023:301-330. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11">10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11</a>'
  apa: 'Auerbach, B., Hoffmann, C., &#38; Pascual Perez, G. (2023). Generic-group
    lower bounds via reductions between geometric-search problems: With and without
    preprocessing. In <i>21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>
    (Vol. 14371, pp. 301–330). Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11</a>'
  chicago: 'Auerbach, Benedikt, Charlotte Hoffmann, and Guillermo Pascual Perez. “Generic-Group
    Lower Bounds via Reductions between Geometric-Search Problems: With and without
    Preprocessing.” In <i>21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>,
    14371:301–30. Springer Nature, 2023. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11</a>.'
  ieee: 'B. Auerbach, C. Hoffmann, and G. Pascual Perez, “Generic-group lower bounds
    via reductions between geometric-search problems: With and without preprocessing,”
    in <i>21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>, 2023, vol.
    14371, pp. 301–330.'
  ista: 'Auerbach B, Hoffmann C, Pascual Perez G. 2023. Generic-group lower bounds
    via reductions between geometric-search problems: With and without preprocessing.
    21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography. , LNCS, vol. 14371, 301–330.'
  mla: 'Auerbach, Benedikt, et al. “Generic-Group Lower Bounds via Reductions between
    Geometric-Search Problems: With and without Preprocessing.” <i>21st International
    Conference on Theory of Cryptography</i>, vol. 14371, Springer Nature, 2023, pp.
    301–30, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11">10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11</a>.'
  short: B. Auerbach, C. Hoffmann, G. Pascual Perez, in:, 21st International Conference
    on Theory of Cryptography, Springer Nature, 2023, pp. 301–330.
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2023-12-17T23:00:54Z
date_published: 2023-11-27T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2025-09-09T14:02:04Z
day: '27'
department:
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-48621-0_11
external_id:
  isi:
  - '001160724400011'
intvolume: '     14371'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/808
month: '11'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 301-330
publication: 21st International Conference on Theory of Cryptography
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783031486203'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: 'Generic-group lower bounds via reductions between geometric-search problems:
  With and without preprocessing'
type: conference
user_id: 317138e5-6ab7-11ef-aa6d-ffef3953e345
volume: 14371
year: '2023'
...
---
_id: '11476'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "Messaging platforms like Signal are widely deployed and provide strong security
    in an asynchronous setting. It is a challenging problem to construct a protocol
    with similar security guarantees that can efficiently scale to large groups. A
    major bottleneck are the frequent key rotations users need to perform to achieve
    post compromise forward security.\r\n\r\nIn current proposals – most notably in
    TreeKEM (which is part of the IETF’s Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol draft)
    – for users in a group of size n to rotate their keys, they must each craft a
    message of size log(n) to be broadcast to the group using an (untrusted) delivery
    server.\r\n\r\nIn larger groups, having users sequentially rotate their keys requires
    too much bandwidth (or takes too long), so variants allowing any T≤n users to
    simultaneously rotate their keys in just 2 communication rounds have been suggested
    (e.g. “Propose and Commit” by MLS). Unfortunately, 2-round concurrent updates
    are either damaging or expensive (or both); i.e. they either result in future
    operations being more costly (e.g. via “blanking” or “tainting”) or are costly
    themselves requiring Ω(T) communication for each user [Bienstock et al., TCC’20].\r\n\r\nIn
    this paper we propose CoCoA; a new scheme that allows for T concurrent updates
    that are neither damaging nor costly. That is, they add no cost to future operations
    yet they only require Ω(log2(n)) communication per user. To circumvent the [Bienstock
    et al.] lower bound, CoCoA increases the number of rounds needed to complete all
    updates from 2 up to (at most) log(n); though typically fewer rounds are needed.\r\n\r\nThe
    key insight of our protocol is the following: in the (non-concurrent version of)
    TreeKEM, a delivery server which gets T concurrent update requests will approve
    one and reject the remaining T−1. In contrast, our server attempts to apply all
    of them. If more than one user requests to rotate the same key during a round,
    the server arbitrarily picks a winner. Surprisingly, we prove that regardless
    of how the server chooses the winners, all previously compromised users will recover
    after at most log(n) such update rounds.\r\n\r\nTo keep the communication complexity
    low, CoCoA is a server-aided CGKA. That is, the delivery server no longer blindly
    forwards packets, but instead actively computes individualized packets tailored
    to each user. As the server is untrusted, this change requires us to develop new
    mechanisms ensuring robustness of the protocol."
acknowledgement: We thank Marta Mularczyk and Yiannis Tselekounis for their very helpful
  feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Joël
  full_name: Alwen, Joël
  last_name: Alwen
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Miguel
  full_name: Cueto Noval, Miguel
  id: ffc563a3-f6e0-11ea-865d-e3cce03d17cc
  last_name: Cueto Noval
  orcid: 0000-0002-2505-4246
- first_name: Karen
  full_name: Klein, Karen
  id: 3E83A2F8-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Klein
- first_name: Guillermo
  full_name: Pascual Perez, Guillermo
  id: 2D7ABD02-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pascual Perez
  orcid: 0000-0001-8630-415X
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
- first_name: Michael
  full_name: Walter, Michael
  last_name: Walter
citation:
  ama: 'Alwen J, Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, et al. CoCoA: Concurrent continuous group
    key agreement. In: <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022</i>. Vol 13276.
    Cham: Springer Nature; 2022:815–844. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28">10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28</a>'
  apa: 'Alwen, J., Auerbach, B., Cueto Noval, M., Klein, K., Pascual Perez, G., Pietrzak,
    K. Z., &#38; Walter, M. (2022). CoCoA: Concurrent continuous group key agreement.
    In <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022</i> (Vol. 13276, pp. 815–844). Cham:
    Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28</a>'
  chicago: 'Alwen, Joël, Benedikt Auerbach, Miguel Cueto Noval, Karen Klein, Guillermo
    Pascual Perez, Krzysztof Z Pietrzak, and Michael Walter. “CoCoA: Concurrent Continuous
    Group Key Agreement.” In <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022</i>, 13276:815–844.
    Cham: Springer Nature, 2022. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28</a>.'
  ieee: 'J. Alwen <i>et al.</i>, “CoCoA: Concurrent continuous group key agreement,”
    in <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022</i>, Trondheim, Norway, 2022, vol.
    13276, pp. 815–844.'
  ista: 'Alwen J, Auerbach B, Cueto Noval M, Klein K, Pascual Perez G, Pietrzak KZ,
    Walter M. 2022. CoCoA: Concurrent continuous group key agreement. Advances in
    Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022. EUROCRYPT: Theory and Applications of Cryptology
    and Information Security, LNCS, vol. 13276, 815–844.'
  mla: 'Alwen, Joël, et al. “CoCoA: Concurrent Continuous Group Key Agreement.” <i>Advances
    in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022</i>, vol. 13276, Springer Nature, 2022, pp. 815–844,
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28">10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28</a>.'
  short: J. Alwen, B. Auerbach, M. Cueto Noval, K. Klein, G. Pascual Perez, K.Z. Pietrzak,
    M. Walter, in:, Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022, Springer Nature, Cham,
    2022, pp. 815–844.
conference:
  end_date: 2022-06-03
  location: Trondheim, Norway
  name: 'EUROCRYPT: Theory and Applications of Cryptology and Information Security'
  start_date: 2022-05-30
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2022-06-30T16:48:00Z
date_published: 2022-05-25T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-04-07T13:01:26Z
day: '25'
department:
- _id: GradSch
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-07085-3_28
ec_funded: 1
external_id:
  isi:
  - '000832305300028'
intvolume: '     13276'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/251
month: '05'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 815–844
place: Cham
project:
- _id: 258AA5B2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '682815'
  name: Teaching Old Crypto New Tricks
- _id: 2564DBCA-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '665385'
  name: International IST Doctoral Program
publication: Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2022
publication_identifier:
  eisbn:
  - '9783031070853'
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783031070846'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
related_material:
  record:
  - id: '18088'
    relation: dissertation_contains
    status: public
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: 'CoCoA: Concurrent continuous group key agreement'
type: conference
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 13276
year: '2022'
...
---
_id: '10408'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: 'Key trees are often the best solution in terms of transmission cost and storage
    requirements for managing keys in a setting where a group needs to share a secret
    key, while being able to efficiently rotate the key material of users (in order
    to recover from a potential compromise, or to add or remove users). Applications
    include multicast encryption protocols like LKH (Logical Key Hierarchies) or group
    messaging like the current IETF proposal TreeKEM. A key tree is a (typically balanced)
    binary tree, where each node is identified with a key: leaf nodes hold users’
    secret keys while the root is the shared group key. For a group of size N, each
    user just holds   log(N)  keys (the keys on the path from its leaf to the root)
    and its entire key material can be rotated by broadcasting   2log(N)  ciphertexts
    (encrypting each fresh key on the path under the keys of its parents). In this
    work we consider the natural setting where we have many groups with partially
    overlapping sets of users, and ask if we can find solutions where the cost of
    rotating a key is better than in the trivial one where we have a separate key
    tree for each group. We show that in an asymptotic setting (where the number m
    of groups is fixed while the number N of users grows) there exist more general
    key graphs whose cost converges to the cost of a single group, thus saving a factor
    linear in the number of groups over the trivial solution. As our asymptotic “solution”
    converges very slowly and performs poorly on concrete examples, we propose an
    algorithm that uses a natural heuristic to compute a key graph for any given group
    structure. Our algorithm combines two greedy algorithms, and is thus very efficient:
    it first converts the group structure into a “lattice graph”, which is then turned
    into a key graph by repeatedly applying the algorithm for constructing a Huffman
    code. To better understand how far our proposal is from an optimal solution, we
    prove lower bounds on the update cost of continuous group-key agreement and multicast
    encryption in a symbolic model admitting (asymmetric) encryption, pseudorandom
    generators, and secret sharing as building blocks.'
acknowledgement: B. Auerbach, M.A. Baig and K. Pietrzak—received funding from the
  European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
  and innovation programme (682815 - TOCNeT); Karen Klein was supported in part by
  ERC CoG grant 724307 and conducted part of this work at IST Austria, funded by the
  ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (682815
  - TOCNeT); Guillermo Pascual-Perez was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020
  research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement
  No. 665385; Michael Walter conducted part of this work at IST Austria, funded by
  the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
  (682815 - TOCNeT).
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Joel F
  full_name: Alwen, Joel F
  id: 2A8DFA8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Alwen
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Mirza Ahad
  full_name: Baig, Mirza Ahad
  id: 3EDE6DE4-AA5A-11E9-986D-341CE6697425
  last_name: Baig
- first_name: Miguel
  full_name: Cueto Noval, Miguel
  id: ffc563a3-f6e0-11ea-865d-e3cce03d17cc
  last_name: Cueto Noval
  orcid: 0000-0002-2505-4246
- first_name: Karen
  full_name: Klein, Karen
  id: 3E83A2F8-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Klein
- first_name: Guillermo
  full_name: Pascual Perez, Guillermo
  id: 2D7ABD02-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pascual Perez
  orcid: 0000-0001-8630-415X
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
- first_name: Michael
  full_name: Walter, Michael
  id: 488F98B0-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Walter
  orcid: 0000-0003-3186-2482
citation:
  ama: 'Alwen JF, Auerbach B, Baig MA, et al. Grafting key trees: Efficient key management
    for overlapping groups. In: <i>19th International Conference</i>. Vol 13044. Springer
    Nature; 2021:222-253. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8">10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8</a>'
  apa: 'Alwen, J. F., Auerbach, B., Baig, M. A., Cueto Noval, M., Klein, K., Pascual
    Perez, G., … Walter, M. (2021). Grafting key trees: Efficient key management for
    overlapping groups. In <i>19th International Conference</i> (Vol. 13044, pp. 222–253).
    Raleigh, NC, United States: Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8</a>'
  chicago: 'Alwen, Joel F, Benedikt Auerbach, Mirza Ahad Baig, Miguel Cueto Noval,
    Karen Klein, Guillermo Pascual Perez, Krzysztof Z Pietrzak, and Michael Walter.
    “Grafting Key Trees: Efficient Key Management for Overlapping Groups.” In <i>19th
    International Conference</i>, 13044:222–53. Springer Nature, 2021. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8</a>.'
  ieee: 'J. F. Alwen <i>et al.</i>, “Grafting key trees: Efficient key management
    for overlapping groups,” in <i>19th International Conference</i>, Raleigh, NC,
    United States, 2021, vol. 13044, pp. 222–253.'
  ista: 'Alwen JF, Auerbach B, Baig MA, Cueto Noval M, Klein K, Pascual Perez G, Pietrzak
    KZ, Walter M. 2021. Grafting key trees: Efficient key management for overlapping
    groups. 19th International Conference. TCC: Theory of Cryptography, LNCS, vol.
    13044, 222–253.'
  mla: 'Alwen, Joel F., et al. “Grafting Key Trees: Efficient Key Management for Overlapping
    Groups.” <i>19th International Conference</i>, vol. 13044, Springer Nature, 2021,
    pp. 222–53, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8">10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8</a>.'
  short: J.F. Alwen, B. Auerbach, M.A. Baig, M. Cueto Noval, K. Klein, G. Pascual
    Perez, K.Z. Pietrzak, M. Walter, in:, 19th International Conference, Springer
    Nature, 2021, pp. 222–253.
conference:
  end_date: 2021-11-11
  location: Raleigh, NC, United States
  name: 'TCC: Theory of Cryptography'
  start_date: 2021-11-08
date_created: 2021-12-05T23:01:42Z
date_published: 2021-11-04T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-04-07T13:01:26Z
day: '04'
department:
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-90456-2_8
ec_funded: 1
external_id:
  isi:
  - '000728363700008'
intvolume: '     13044'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/1158
month: '11'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 222-253
project:
- _id: 258AA5B2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '682815'
  name: Teaching Old Crypto New Tricks
- _id: 2564DBCA-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '665385'
  name: International IST Doctoral Program
publication: 19th International Conference
publication_identifier:
  eisbn:
  - 978-3-030-90456-2
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - 9-783-0309-0455-5
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
related_material:
  record:
  - id: '18088'
    relation: dissertation_contains
    status: public
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: 'Grafting key trees: Efficient key management for overlapping groups'
type: conference
user_id: 4359f0d1-fa6c-11eb-b949-802e58b17ae8
volume: 13044
year: '2021'
...
---
_id: '9826'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "Automated contract tracing aims at supporting manual contact tracing during
    pandemics by alerting users of encounters with infected people. There are currently
    many proposals for protocols (like the “decentralized” DP-3T and PACT or the “centralized”
    ROBERT and DESIRE) to be run on mobile phones, where the basic idea is to regularly
    broadcast (using low energy Bluetooth) some values, and at the same time store
    (a function of) incoming messages broadcasted by users in their proximity. In
    the existing proposals one can trigger false positives on a massive scale by an
    “inverse-Sybil” attack, where a large number of devices (malicious users or hacked
    phones) pretend to be the same user, such that later, just a single person needs
    to be diagnosed (and allowed to upload) to trigger an alert for all users who
    were in proximity to any of this large group of devices.\r\n\r\nWe propose the
    first protocols that do not succumb to such attacks assuming the devices involved
    in the attack do not constantly communicate, which we observe is a necessary assumption.
    The high level idea of the protocols is to derive the values to be broadcasted
    by a hash chain, so that two (or more) devices who want to launch an inverse-Sybil
    attack will not be able to connect their respective chains and thus only one of
    them will be able to upload. Our protocols also achieve security against replay,
    belated replay, and one of them even against relay attacks."
acknowledgement: Guillermo Pascual-Perez and Michelle Yeo were funded by the European
  Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska–Curie
  Grant Agreement No. 665385; the remaining contributors to this project have received
  funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon
  2020 research and innovation programme (682815 - TOCNeT).
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Suvradip
  full_name: Chakraborty, Suvradip
  id: B9CD0494-D033-11E9-B219-A439E6697425
  last_name: Chakraborty
- first_name: Karen
  full_name: Klein, Karen
  id: 3E83A2F8-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Klein
- first_name: Guillermo
  full_name: Pascual Perez, Guillermo
  id: 2D7ABD02-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pascual Perez
  orcid: 0000-0001-8630-415X
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
- first_name: Michael
  full_name: Walter, Michael
  id: 488F98B0-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Walter
  orcid: 0000-0003-3186-2482
- first_name: Michelle X
  full_name: Yeo, Michelle X
  id: 2D82B818-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Yeo
  orcid: 0009-0001-3676-4809
citation:
  ama: 'Auerbach B, Chakraborty S, Klein K, et al. Inverse-Sybil attacks in automated
    contact tracing. In: <i>Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021</i>. Vol 12704. Springer
    Nature; 2021:399-421. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17">10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17</a>'
  apa: 'Auerbach, B., Chakraborty, S., Klein, K., Pascual Perez, G., Pietrzak, K.
    Z., Walter, M., &#38; Yeo, M. X. (2021). Inverse-Sybil attacks in automated contact
    tracing. In <i>Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021</i> (Vol. 12704, pp. 399–421).
    Virtual Event: Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17</a>'
  chicago: Auerbach, Benedikt, Suvradip Chakraborty, Karen Klein, Guillermo Pascual
    Perez, Krzysztof Z Pietrzak, Michael Walter, and Michelle X Yeo. “Inverse-Sybil
    Attacks in Automated Contact Tracing.” In <i>Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021</i>,
    12704:399–421. Springer Nature, 2021. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17</a>.
  ieee: B. Auerbach <i>et al.</i>, “Inverse-Sybil attacks in automated contact tracing,”
    in <i>Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021</i>, Virtual Event, 2021, vol. 12704,
    pp. 399–421.
  ista: 'Auerbach B, Chakraborty S, Klein K, Pascual Perez G, Pietrzak KZ, Walter
    M, Yeo MX. 2021. Inverse-Sybil attacks in automated contact tracing. Topics in
    Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021. CT-RSA: Cryptographers’ Track at the RSA Conference,
    LNCS, vol. 12704, 399–421.'
  mla: Auerbach, Benedikt, et al. “Inverse-Sybil Attacks in Automated Contact Tracing.”
    <i>Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021</i>, vol. 12704, Springer Nature, 2021,
    pp. 399–421, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17">10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17</a>.
  short: B. Auerbach, S. Chakraborty, K. Klein, G. Pascual Perez, K.Z. Pietrzak, M.
    Walter, M.X. Yeo, in:, Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021, Springer Nature, 2021,
    pp. 399–421.
conference:
  end_date: 2021-05-20
  location: Virtual Event
  name: 'CT-RSA: Cryptographers’ Track at the RSA Conference'
  start_date: 2021-05-17
corr_author: '1'
date_created: 2021-08-08T22:01:30Z
date_published: 2021-05-11T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-04-16T09:28:46Z
day: '11'
department:
- _id: KrPi
- _id: GradSch
doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17
ec_funded: 1
intvolume: '     12704'
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/670
month: '05'
oa: 1
oa_version: Submitted Version
page: 399-421
project:
- _id: 2564DBCA-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '665385'
  name: International IST Doctoral Program
- _id: 258AA5B2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '682815'
  name: Teaching Old Crypto New Tricks
publication: Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783030755386'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Inverse-Sybil attacks in automated contact tracing
type: conference
user_id: ba8df636-2132-11f1-aed0-ed93e2281fdd
volume: 12704
year: '2021'
...
---
_id: '7966'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "For 1≤m≤n, we consider a natural m-out-of-n multi-instance scenario for a
    public-key encryption (PKE) scheme. An adversary, given n independent instances
    of PKE, wins if he breaks at least m out of the n instances. In this work, we
    are interested in the scaling factor of PKE schemes, SF, which measures how well
    the difficulty of breaking m out of the n instances scales in m. That is, a scaling
    factor SF=ℓ indicates that breaking m out of n instances is at least ℓ times more
    difficult than breaking one single instance. A PKE scheme with small scaling factor
    hence provides an ideal target for mass surveillance. In fact, the Logjam attack
    (CCS 2015) implicitly exploited, among other things, an almost constant scaling
    factor of ElGamal over finite fields (with shared group parameters).\r\n\r\nFor
    Hashed ElGamal over elliptic curves, we use the generic group model to argue that
    the scaling factor depends on the scheme's granularity. In low granularity, meaning
    each public key contains its independent group parameter, the scheme has optimal
    scaling factor SF=m; In medium and high granularity, meaning all public keys share
    the same group parameter, the scheme still has a reasonable scaling factor SF=√m.
    Our findings underline that instantiating ElGamal over elliptic curves should
    be preferred to finite fields in a multi-instance scenario.\r\n\r\nAs our main
    technical contribution, we derive new generic-group lower bounds of Ω(√(mp)) on
    the difficulty of solving both the m-out-of-n Gap Discrete Logarithm and the m-out-of-n
    Gap Computational Diffie-Hellman problem over groups of prime order p, extending
    a recent result by Yun (EUROCRYPT 2015). We establish the lower bound by studying
    the hardness of a related computational problem which we call the search-by-hypersurface
    problem."
alternative_title:
- LNCS
article_processing_charge: No
author:
- first_name: Benedikt
  full_name: Auerbach, Benedikt
  id: D33D2B18-E445-11E9-ABB7-15F4E5697425
  last_name: Auerbach
  orcid: 0000-0002-7553-6606
- first_name: Federico
  full_name: Giacon, Federico
  last_name: Giacon
- first_name: Eike
  full_name: Kiltz, Eike
  last_name: Kiltz
citation:
  ama: 'Auerbach B, Giacon F, Kiltz E. Everybody’s a target: Scalability in public-key
    encryption. In: <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2020</i>. Vol 12107. Springer
    Nature; 2020:475-506. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16">10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16</a>'
  apa: 'Auerbach, B., Giacon, F., &#38; Kiltz, E. (2020). Everybody’s a target: Scalability
    in public-key encryption. In <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2020</i> (Vol.
    12107, pp. 475–506). Springer Nature. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16</a>'
  chicago: 'Auerbach, Benedikt, Federico Giacon, and Eike Kiltz. “Everybody’s a Target:
    Scalability in Public-Key Encryption.” In <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT
    2020</i>, 12107:475–506. Springer Nature, 2020. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16</a>.'
  ieee: 'B. Auerbach, F. Giacon, and E. Kiltz, “Everybody’s a target: Scalability
    in public-key encryption,” in <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2020</i>,
    2020, vol. 12107, pp. 475–506.'
  ista: 'Auerbach B, Giacon F, Kiltz E. 2020. Everybody’s a target: Scalability in
    public-key encryption. Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2020. EUROCRYPT: Theory
    and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, LNCS, vol. 12107, 475–506.'
  mla: 'Auerbach, Benedikt, et al. “Everybody’s a Target: Scalability in Public-Key
    Encryption.” <i>Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2020</i>, vol. 12107, Springer
    Nature, 2020, pp. 475–506, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16">10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16</a>.'
  short: B. Auerbach, F. Giacon, E. Kiltz, in:, Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT
    2020, Springer Nature, 2020, pp. 475–506.
conference:
  end_date: 2020-05-15
  name: 'EUROCRYPT: Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques'
  start_date: 2020-05-11
date_created: 2020-06-15T07:13:37Z
date_published: 2020-05-01T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-04-16T10:21:02Z
day: '01'
department:
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-45727-3_16
ec_funded: 1
external_id:
  isi:
  - '000828688000016'
intvolume: '     12107'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/364
month: '05'
oa: 1
oa_version: Submitted Version
page: 475-506
project:
- _id: 258AA5B2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '682815'
  name: Teaching Old Crypto New Tricks
publication: Advances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 2020
publication_identifier:
  eisbn:
  - '9783030457273'
  eissn:
  - 1611-3349
  isbn:
  - '9783030457266'
  issn:
  - 0302-9743
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: 'Everybody’s a target: Scalability in public-key encryption'
type: conference
user_id: ba8df636-2132-11f1-aed0-ed93e2281fdd
volume: 12107
year: '2020'
...
