Searching Keywords with Wildcards on Encrypted Data

Abstract. A hidden vector encryption scheme (HVE) is a derivation of identity-based encryption, where the public key is actually a vector over a certain alphabet. The decryption key is also derived from such a vector, but this one is also allowed to have “ ” (or wildcard) entries. Decryption is possible as long as these tuples agree on every position except where a “ ” occurs. These schemes are useful for a variety of applications: they can be used as building block to construct attribute-based encryption schemes and sophisticated predicate encryption schemes (for e.g. range or subset queries). Another interesting application – and our main motivation – is to create searchable encryption schemes that support queries for keywords containing wildcards. Here we construct a new HVE scheme, based on bilinear groups of prime order, which supports vectors over any alphabet. The resulting ciphertext length is equally shorter than existing schemes, depending on a trade-off. The len...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: SCN
• Authors: Saeed Sedghi, Peter van Liesdonk, Svetla Nikova, Pieter H. Hartel, Willem Jonker
• Keywords: Communications, Decryption Key, Encryption, Encryption Schemes, SCN 2010