diff --git a/chapters/01_introduction.tex b/chapters/01_introduction.tex index 547cb48bb5b7ae67a3327c292052ef7a77b535d0..5e291414bcce75df4d9c02d32442615b8bcbd351 100644 --- a/chapters/01_introduction.tex +++ b/chapters/01_introduction.tex @@ -313,3 +313,22 @@ A document owner can directly send her document hash and the current time to $n$ By sending $n'$ witness signatures to a verifier, the document owner can prove the validity of her time-stamp. \subsubsection{\label{section::random_witness}Random-witness time-stamping} + +\citeauthor{Haber1991Timestamp} proposed using a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) to ensure uniformly distributed random witness selection for the purpose of distributed time-stamping.\footfullcite{Haber1991Timestamp} +Each participating witness is initially assigned a unique identifier. +The document owner can then seed the PRNG with the hash of her document and interpret the PRNG's output as witness identifiers. +This way, she selects the $n$ witnesses responsible for signing her time-stamp. +To confirm the time-stamp's validity, a verifier first checks the witness signatures. +She then verifies that the $n$ identifiers produced by the PRNG when seeded with the document's hash are a superset of the identifiers corresponding to the $n'$ witness signatures. + +This scheme is secure if the hash function applied to the document has the \emph{one-way} property: +Given a desired output hash, it should be computationally hard to find an input for which the hash function produces this output. +If the hash function did not have this property, a document owner could possibly carry out a backdating attack by colluding with at least $n'$ witnesses. +She would be able to construct a meaningful document such that the witnesses selected by the PRNG would be those colluding with her ($\omega\rightarrow\infty$). + +Another security requirement is that the PRNG produces uniformly distributed identifiers. +A non-uniform distribution could again potentially be exploited ($\omega>1$) to increase the probability of a successful backdating or DoS attack. + +The random-witness scheme proposed by \citeauthor{Haber1991Timestamp} is desirable if we are not sure that Equations~\eqref{equation::backdating_protection} and \eqref{equation::dos_protection} hold, and hence want to ensure $\omega=1$ to minimize the probability of successful backdating and DoS attacks. + +\subsubsection{Threshold cryptography} diff --git a/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric.pdf b/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric.pdf index bbd524fb547587f656f4e05ff3bd7dda15f78b9c..a5b84078a12b3da846ecf91a482377f5551b3aa5 100644 Binary files a/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric.pdf and b/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric.pdf differ diff --git a/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric_available.pdf b/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric_available.pdf index 66df23ac43cc2726a0957dcc68ee741570a400c1..5ea44effa54728bcbafeb92f2e4d2262e29f7847 100644 Binary files a/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric_available.pdf and b/figures/backdating_probability_hypergeometric_available.pdf differ diff --git a/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral.pdf b/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral.pdf index 7c145beac548d730f99e71bc0c6f39a544476683..17c537baa2a0ea398744ec16d0d3ad2a6911fd41 100644 Binary files a/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral.pdf and b/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral.pdf differ diff --git a/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral_available.pdf b/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral_available.pdf index 9977583f3fc05bb614e90bdb59b2c7906ece9cd9..2112e1e483c0dcbf9ee8e8362f7f66a9c275490a 100644 Binary files a/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral_available.pdf and b/figures/backdating_probability_noncentral_available.pdf differ diff --git a/figures/dos_hypergeometric.pdf b/figures/dos_hypergeometric.pdf index 0ea5d6ca971264393931493dfa8980945ef92789..dbe4ab9dea618cc2f39a64543342b89217f6ab02 100644 Binary files a/figures/dos_hypergeometric.pdf and b/figures/dos_hypergeometric.pdf differ diff --git a/figures/dos_noncentral.pdf b/figures/dos_noncentral.pdf index 84a3cd1d770285542e1b4b0e923e9486c9d32f91..88af066ce9f82402cbad67b02ee3b4b5b21d9e51 100644 Binary files a/figures/dos_noncentral.pdf and b/figures/dos_noncentral.pdf differ diff --git a/glossary.tex b/glossary.tex index dac3917d66773be45c081506967a87455e62794c..fb1b27fbdc12f3bf5a553023f47b2d7dec2780da 100644 --- a/glossary.tex +++ b/glossary.tex @@ -27,5 +27,6 @@ } \newacronym{dos}{DoS}{Denial of Service} +\newacronym{prng}{PRNG}{Pseudo-Random Number Generator} \newacronym{tsa}{TSA}{Time-Stamp Authority} \newacronym{ttp}{TTP}{Trusted Third Party} diff --git a/main.tex b/main.tex index 9a21d043427beac070d42ddc72351c394d66cc1d..7804393acef5f9f77f92e6c326f2ae14cd63b066 100644 --- a/main.tex +++ b/main.tex @@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ \pagenumbering{roman} % start roman page numbers from here (optional) \section*{Appendix} \label{Appendix} \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Appendix} % adds entry to table of contents -\selbstaendigkeitserklaerung{\today} +\selbstaendigkeitserklaerung{1. Januar 1970} %\input{chapters/xxx} % add in case you have additional images/tables \end{document} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% diff --git a/thesis.pdf b/thesis.pdf index 490bb8f38e930f403eac7d480245b16bd15f143b..da4f6229c870633ed78dadab76e78fab69faa318 100644 Binary files a/thesis.pdf and b/thesis.pdf differ