Abstract
Assuming the existence of one-way functions, we describe a simple protocol to exchange secret keys through an insecure (but authenticated) channel. If no precomputation is allowed, our scheme uses O(n) time for agreement on a number in the range 1..n 2. An intruder takes time O(n 2) to obtain the secret key. Thus, the number of steps necessary to cryptanalyze is the square of the number of steps in the protocol. If pre-computation is allowed to one of the parties in the key-exchange and also to the enemy, then this performance can be improved significantly. The assumptions necessary about the one-way-function are weaker than the assumptions in [Mer78] and in [DH76].1 The potential applications of our protocol also are more general than those of Merkle’s protocol.
The set of functions usable in Merkle’s protocol is a subset of the set of one-way trap-door functions. The set of functions usable in our protocol is a superset of the set of one-way functions.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
W. Diffie and M. E. Hellman. New directions in cryptography. IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, IT-22(6):644–654, November 1976.
R. Impagliazzo and S. Rudich. Limits on the provable consequences of one-way permutations. Proceedings of the 21th Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing, pages 44–61, 1989.
Ralph Merkle. Secure communications over insecure channels. Communications of the ACM, 21(4):294–299, 1978.
J.-J. Quisquater, Y. Desmedt, and M. Davio. The importance of ‘good’ key scheduling schemes (how to make a secure DES scheme with ≤ 48 bit keys?). In Hugh C. Williams, editor, Advances in Cryptology. Proc. of Crypto’85 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 218), pages 537–542. Springer-Verlag, 1986. Santa Barbara. California, U.S.A., August 18–20.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Davida, G., Desmedt, Y., Peralta, R. (1990). A Key Distribution System Based On Any One-Way Function. In: Quisquater, JJ., Vandewalle, J. (eds) Advances in Cryptology — EUROCRYPT ’89. EUROCRYPT 1989. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 434. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46885-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46885-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-53433-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46885-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive