Multi-authority anonymous authentication with public accountability for incentive-based applications

Incentive-based applications enable users to obtain rewards after they complete a task, but how to balance the privacy and accountability is one of the most serious concerns currently. Publicly accountable anonymous authentication provides an excellent way verifying a user's identity in a privacy-preserving way while ensuring public accountability in case of dispute. Although different kinds of these schemes have been proposed, they all assume that there is a single centralized certificate authority issuing a certificate to users, and are not suitable for an actual scenario which always involves multiple authorities. Therefore, a new primitive called multi-authority linkable and traceable anonymous authentication is proposed to address this issue, enabling privacy protection while holding public accountability under a multi-authority setting. We formally define a security model for this new notion and simultaneously design a generic construction while giving the security proof. Additionally, we implement the proposed scheme to show its efficiency.

Automated summary

Incentive-based applications allow users to receive rewards upon completing tasks, raising concerns about privacy and accountability. Publicly accountable anonymous authentication provides a privacy-preserving way to verify identity while ensuring public accountability. Existing schemes assume a centralized certificate authority, which is not suitable for scenarios involving multiple authorities. To address this, a new primitive called multi-authority linkable and traceable anonymous authentication is proposed, offering privacy protection and public accountability in a multi-authority setting. We provide a security model and a generic construction with a security proof. The proposed scheme is also implemented to demonstrate its efficiency.