diff --git a/chapters/01_introduction.tex b/chapters/01_introduction.tex index dbe30f6c7bb2086e83ca6b16adfd9f1659e746b5..4552d103cd94bd8742d80a9f5cc948fddbe9fb72 100644 --- a/chapters/01_introduction.tex +++ b/chapters/01_introduction.tex @@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ The publication can be implemented in many different ways, which we will take a For now, the reader may imagine that the TSA publishes its time-stamps in a newspaper. The time-stamping company \emph{Surety} actually employed this method of publication in practice. (Citation needed) -Witnesses keep records of the time-stamps issued by the TSA. +Witnesses keep a record of the time-stamps issued by the TSA. They do not accept time-stamps issued too far in the past. Staying with the example of time-stamps published in a newspaper, the newspaper archives of public libraries can act as witnesses. To prevent backdating attacks, a library only archives a newspaper which it receives on the printed date of publication. @@ -44,3 +44,69 @@ Instead, it would require the active cooperation of a sufficiently large number The client's trust is thus \emph{distributed} over the TSA, the publication process and the witnesses. \subsubsection{Quantifying distributed trust} + +Let us now introduce a mathematical model for the publication scheme outlined in the previous section. +Say the TSA publishes its time-stamps to $N$ witnesses. +It should be emphasized that a witness is required to keep a record of time-stamps. +Going back to our example of time-stamps published in a newspaper, $N$ does \emph{not} correspond to the number of copies printed. +Instead, $N$ refers to the number of places that keep archives of the newspaper. + +We assume that there exist a number $E$ of malicious witnesses that collude together with the TSA in an attempt to backdate time-stamps. + +Finally, a client consults a number $n$ of witnesses to verify a time-stamp. +The client only accepts the time-stamp if all $n$ selected witnesses confirm its existence at the given time. + +Let $e$ be the number of maliciously colluding witnesses selected by the client. +Evidently, a successful backdating attack occurs when the client selects only colluding witnesses, so when $e=n$. + +Let us now further assume that the client selects its $n$ witnesses from the total number of witnesses $N$ completely at random. +Our problem is now equivalent to the urn problem when ``drawing without replacement''. +$e$ thus follows the hypergeometric distribution. (cite Forbes2010Statistical pp. 117-119) + +\begin{equation} + \left. P(e=k)=\binom{E}{k}\binom{N-E}{n-k} \middle/ \binom{N}{n}\right. +\end{equation} + +The probability of a successful backdating attack is then given by the equation: + +\begin{equation} + \left. P(e=n)=\binom{E}{n} \middle/ \binom{N}{n}\right. +\end{equation} + +In practice, the selection of witnesses may not be truly random. +Sticking to our example of newspaper archives, a client will likely prefer libraries which are geographically close to them. +A network protocol for distributed trust may also favor witnesses with small round-trip times in order to increase performance. + +An attacker may be able to leverage this by placing colluding witnesses at favorable locations. +We can model this by introducing a weight parameter $\omega$, where a malicious witness is $\omega$ times more likely to be selected than an honest witness. +$e$ then follows Fisher's noncentral hypergeomtric distribution. (cite Fog2008Sampling) + +\begin{align} + e_{\mathrm{min}}&=\max(0, n+E-N)\\ + e_{\mathrm{max}}&=\min(n, E)\\ + P(e=k)&=\left. \binom{E}{k}\binom{N-E}{n-k}\omega^k \middle/ \sum_{k'=e_{\mathrm{min}}}^{e_{\mathrm{max}}} \binom{E}{k'}\binom{N-E}{n-k'}\omega^{k'} \right. +\end{align} + +With the probability of a successful backdating attack being: + +\begin{equation} + P(e=n)=\left. \binom{E}{n}\omega^n \middle/ \sum_{k'=e_{\mathrm{min}}}^{e_{\mathrm{max}}} \binom{E}{k'}\binom{N-E}{n-k'}\omega^{k'} \right. +\end{equation} + +Note that these equations are equivalent to the hypergeomtric distribution when $\omega=1$. +This is the optimal case, limiting the probability of a successful backdating attack as much as possible. + +$\omega$ approaches infinity if the attacker can ensure that the client will only select malicious witnesses. +In this case, the probability of a successful backdating attack approaches 1. + +\begin{equation} + \lim_{\omega\rightarrow \infty} P(e=n)=1 +\end{equation} + +This is, of course, the worst possible case for security. + +TODO: Add lots of graphs for the probability distributions in this section. + +TODO: The other side of trust is that Alice needs to trust service availability. +Can be solved by employing multiple TSAs. +Quickly explain this. diff --git a/main.tex b/main.tex index afa3ec7699ac03c4a31e35181694752e666e27e5..9d24c752bde7e5b48c8794b833a321f59e309de0 100644 --- a/main.tex +++ b/main.tex @@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ % UTILITY PACKAGES \usepackage{cite} \usepackage{comment} % enables block comments via \begin{comment} ... \end{comment} environment +\usepackage{amsmath} % for all the good maths stuff like the align environment \usepackage{amsthm} % for definitions, lemmas, etc. - also for defining your own stuff, eg below: %\theoremstyle{definition} % defines a new theorem called definition %\newtheorem{definition}{Definition}[section] % definition setup and call diff --git a/thesis.pdf b/thesis.pdf index f64450818860649daeaeab2241288abb66f9fc1e..4581162f5385712d6483e2b2dda210840c812940 100644 Binary files a/thesis.pdf and b/thesis.pdf differ