Self-Verifiable Attribute-Based Keyword Search Scheme for Distributed Data Storage in Fog Computing With Fast Decryption

Presently many searchable encryption schemes have been proposed for cloud and fog computing, which use fog nodes (or fog servers) to partly undertake some computational tasks. However, these related schemes still retain cloud servers to undertake most computational tasks, which result in large communication costs between edge devices and cloud servers. Therefore, in this paper we propose a self-verifiable attribute-based keyword search scheme for distributed data storage (SV-KSDS) in full fog computing, where each decryption operation on the data required by a user must meet the negotiated decryption rule between fog servers. Our SV-KSDS scheme first provides attribute-based distributed data storage among fog servers through the (w, sigma) threshold secret-sharing scheme, where fog servers can provide self-verifiable keyword search and data decryption for terminal users. Compared with the data storage in cloud computing, our scheme extends it to the distributed structure while providing fine-grained access control for distributed data storage through attribute-based encryption. The access control policy of our scheme is constructed on linear secret-sharing scheme, whose security is reduced to the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption against chosen-keyword attack and the decisional q-parallel bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption against chosen-plaintext attack in the standard model. Based on theoretical analysis and practical testing, our SV-KSDS scheme generates less computation and communication costs, which further unloads some computational tasks from terminal users to fog servers so as to reduce computing costs of terminal users.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a self-verifiable attribute-based keyword search scheme for distributed data storage in a full fog computing environment. The scheme provides attribute-based distributed data storage among fog servers through a threshold secret-sharing scheme and offers self-verifiable keyword search and data decryption for terminal users.