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Key-Aggregate Cryptosystem for Scalable Data Sharing in Cloud Storage

Data sharing is an important functionality in cloud storage. In this article, we show how to securely, efficiently, and flexibly share data with others in cloud storage. We describe new public-key cryptosystems which produce constant-size ciphertexts such that efficient delegation of decryption rights for any set of ciphertexts are possible. The novelty is that one can aggregate any set of secret keys and make them as compact as a single key, but encompassing the power of all the keys being aggregated. In other words, the secret key holder can release a constant-size aggregate key for flexible choices of ciphertext set in cloud storage, but the other encrypted files outside the set remain confidential. This compact aggregate key can be conveniently sent to others or be stored in a smart card with very limited secure storage. We provide formal security analysis of our schemes in the standard model. We also describe other application of our schemes. In particular, our schemes give the first public-key patient-controlled encryption for flexible hierarchy, which was yet to be known.

INTRODUCTION

Cloud storage is gaining popularity recently. In enterprise settings, we see the rise in demand for data outsourcing, which assists in the strategic management of corporate data. It is also used as a core technology behind many online services for personal applications. Nowadays, it is easy to apply for free accounts for email, photo album, file sharing and/or remote access, with storage size more than 25GB (or a few dollars for more than 1TB). Together with the current wireless technology, users can access almost all of their files and emails by a mobile phone in any corner of the world. Considering data privacy, a traditional way to ensure it is to rely on the server to enforce the access control after authentication., which means any unexpected privilege escalation will expose all data. In a shared-tenancy cloud computing environment, things become even worse. Data from different clients can be hosted on separate virtual machines (VMs) but reside on a single physical machine. Data in a target VM could be stolen by instantiating another VM co-resident with the target one. Regarding availability of files, there are a series of cryptographic schemes which go as far as allowing a third-party auditor to check the availability of files on behalf of the data owner without leaking anything about the data, or without compromising the data owners anonymity. Likewise, cloud users probably will not hold the strong belief that the cloud server is doing a good job in terms of confidentiality. A cryptographic solution, with proven security relied on number-theoretic assumptions is more desirable, whenever the user is not perfectly happy with trusting the security of the VM or the honesty of the technical staff. These users are motivated to encrypt their data with their own keys before uploading them to the server. Data sharing is an important functionality in cloud storage. For example, bloggers can let their friends view a subset of their private pictures; an enterprise may grant her employees access to a portion of sensitive data. The challenging problem is how to effectively share encrypted data. Of course users can download the encrypted data from the storage, decrypt them, then send them to others for sharing, but it loses the value of cloud storage. Users should be able to delegate the access rights of the sharing data to others so that they can access these data from the server directly. However, finding an efficient and secure way to share partial data in cloud storage is not trivial. Below we will take Dropbox1 as an example for illustration. Assume that Alice puts all her private photos on Dropbox, and she does not want to expose her photos to everyone. Due to various data leakage possibility Alice cannot feel relieved by just relying on the privacy protection mechanisms provided by Dropbox, so she encrypts all the photos using her own keys before uploading. One day, Alice’s friend, Bob, asks her to share the photos taken over all these years which Bob appeared in. Alice can then use the share function of Dropbox, but the problem now is how to delegate the decryption rights for these photos to Bob. A possible option Alice can choose is to securely send Bob the secret keys involved. Naturally, there are two extreme ways for her under the traditional encryption paradigm:

_ Alice encrypts all files with a single encryption key and gives Bob the corresponding secret key directly.

_ Alice encrypts files with distinct keys and sends Bob the corresponding secret keys.

Obviously, the first method is inadequate since all unchosen data may be also leaked to Bob. For the second method, there are practical concerns on efficiency. The number of such keys is as many as the number of the shared photos, say, a thousand. Transferring these secret keys inherently requires a secure channel, and storing these keys requires rather expensive secure storage. Best Android and PHP Projects for the final year college students The costs and complexities involved generally increase with the number of the decryption keys to be shared. In short, it is very heavy and costly to do that. Encryption keys also come with two flavors — symmetric key or asymmetric (public) key. Using symmetric encryption, when Alice wants the data to be originated from a third party, she has to give the encryptor her secret key; obviously, this is not always desirable. By contrast, the encryption key and decryption key are different in public-key encryption. The use of public-key encryption gives more flexibility for our applications. For example, in enterprise settings, every employee can upload encrypted data on the cloud storage server without the knowledge of the company’s master-secret key. Therefore, the best solution for the above problem is that Alice encrypts files with distinct public-keys, but only sends Bob a single (constant-size) decryption key. Since the decryption key should be sent via a secure channel and kept secret, small key size is always desirable. For example, we can not expect large storage for decryption keys in the resource-constraint devices like smart phones, smart cards or wireless sensor nodes. Especially, these secret keys are usually stored in the tamper-proof memory, which is relatively expensive. The present research efforts mainly focus on minimizing the communication requirements (such as bandwidth, rounds of communication) like aggregate signature. However, not much has been done about the key itself (see Section 3 for more details).

LITRATURE SURVEY

SPICE – SIMPLE PRIVACY-PRESERVING IDENTITY-MANAGEMENT FOR CLOUD ENVIRONMENT

PUBLICATION: S. S. M. Chow, Y. J. He, L. C. K. Hui, and S.-M. Yiu, in Applied Cryptography and Network Security – ACNS 2012, ser. LNCS, vol. 7341. Springer, 2012, pp. 526–543.

PRIVACY- PRESERVING PUBLIC AUDITING FOR SECURE CLOUD STORAGE

PUBLICATION: C. Wang, S. S. M. Chow, Q. Wang, K. Ren, and W. Lou, IEEE Trans. Computers, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 362–375, 2013.

STORING SHARED DATA ON THE CLOUD VIA SECURITY-MEDIATOR

PUBLICATION: B. Wang, S. S. M. Chow, M. Li, and H. Li, in International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems – ICDCS 2013. IEEE, 2013.

DYNAMIC SECURE CLOUD STORAGE WITH PROVENANCE

PUBLICATION: S. S. M. Chow, C.-K. Chu, X. Huang, J. Zhou, and R. H. Deng, in Cryptography and Security: From Theory to Applications – Essays Dedicated to Jean-Jacques Quisquater on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ser. LNCS, vol. 6805. Springer, 2012, pp. 442–464.

SYSTEM ANALYSIS

EXISTING SYSTEM:

There exist several expressive ABE schemes where the decryption algorithm only requires a constant number of pairing computations. Recently, Green et al. proposed a remedy to this problem by introducing the notion of ABE with outsourced decryption, which largely eliminates the decryption overhead for users. Based on the existing ABE schemes, Green et al. also presented concrete ABE schemes with outsourced decryption.

In these existing schemes, a user provides an untrusted server, say a proxy operated by a cloud service provider, with a transformation key TK that allows the latter to translate any ABE ciphertext CT satisfied by that user’s attributes or access policy into a simple ciphertext CT’, and it only incurs a small overhead for the user to recover the plaintext from the transformed ciphertext CT’. The security property of the ABE scheme with outsourced decryption guarantees that an adversary (including the malicious cloud server) be not able to learn anything about the encrypted message; however, the scheme provides no guarantee on the correctness of the transformation done by the cloud server. In the cloud computing setting, cloud service providers may have strong financial incentives to return incorrect answers, if such answers require less work and are unlikely to be detected by users.

DISADVANTAGES:

One of the main efficiency drawbacks of the most existing ABE schemes is that decryption is expensive for resource-limited devices due to pairing operations, and the number of pairing operations required to decrypt a ciphertext grows with the complexity of the access policy.

The above observation motivates us to study ABE with verifiable outsourced decryption in this thesis work. Here emphasized that an ABE scheme with secure outsourced decryption does not necessarily guarantee verifiability (i.e., correctness of the transformation done by the cloud server).

PROPOSED SYSTEM:

We considered the verifiability of the cloud’s transformation and provided a method to check the correctness of the transformation. However, the we did not formally define verifiability. But it is not feasible to construct ABE schemes with verifiable outsourced decryption following the model defined in the existing. Moreover, the method proposed in existing relies on random oracles (RO). Unfortunately, the RO model is heuristic, and a proof of security in the RO model does not directly imply anything about the security of an ABE scheme in the real world. It is well known that there exist cryptographic schemes which are secure in the RO model but are inherently insecure when the RO is instantiated with any real hash function.

In this thesis work, firstly modify the original model of ABE with outsourced decryption in the existing to allow for verifiability of the transformations. After describing the formal definition of verifiability, we propose a new ABE model and based on this new model construct a concrete ABE scheme with verifiable outsourced decryption. Our scheme does not rely on random oracles.

In this paper we only focus on CP-ABE with verifiable outsourced decryption. The same approach applies to KP-ABE with verifiable outsourced decryption.To assess the performance of our ABE scheme with verifiable outsourced decryption, we implement the CP-ABE scheme with verifiable outsourced decryption and conduct experiments on both an ARM-based mobile device and an Intel-core personal computer to model a mobile user and a proxy, respectively. 

ADVANTAGES:

HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:

HARDWARE REQUIREMENT:

v    Processor                                 –    Pentium –IV

  • Speed                                      –    1.1 GHz
    • RAM                                       –    256 MB (min)
    • Hard Disk                               –   20 GB
    • Floppy Drive                           –    1.44 MB
    • Key Board                              –    Standard Windows Keyboard
    • Mouse                                     –    Two or Three Button Mouse
    • Monitor                                   –    SVGA

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:

  • Operating System                   :           Windows XP
  • Front End                                :           Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2008
  • Back End                                :           MS-SQL Server 2005
  • Document                               :           MS-Office 2007

SYSTEM DESIGN:

Data Flow Diagram / Use Case Diagram / Flow Diagram:

  • The DFD is also called as bubble chart. It is a simple graphical formalism that can be used to represent a system in terms of the input data to the system, various processing carried out on these data, and the output data is generated by the system
  • The data flow diagram (DFD) is one of the most important modeling tools. It is used to model the system components. These components are the system process, the data used by the process, an external entity that interacts with the system and the information flows in the system.
  • DFD shows how the information moves through the system and how it is modified by a series of transformations. It is a graphical technique that depicts information flow and the transformations that are applied as data moves from input to output.
  • DFD is also known as bubble chart. A DFD may be used to represent a system at any level of abstraction. DFD may be partitioned into levels that represent increasing information flow and functional detail.

MODELING RULES:

There are several common modeling rules when creating DFDs:

  1. All processes must have at least one data flow in and one data flow out.
  2. All processes should modify the incoming data, producing new forms of outgoing data.
  3. Each data store must be involved with at least one data flow.
  4. Each external entity must be involved with at least one data flow.
  5. A data flow must be attached to at least one process.

MODULE DESCRIPTION:

SETUP PHASE

The setup algorithm takes no input other than the implicit security parameter. It outputs the public parameters PK and a master key MK.

ENCRYPT PHASE

Encrypt(PK,M, A). The encryption algorithm takes as input the public parameters PK, a message M, and an access structure A over the universe of attributes. The algorithm will encrypt M and produce a ciphertext CT such that only a user that possesses a set of attributes that satisfies the access structure will be able to decrypt the message. We will assume that the ciphertext implicitly contains A.

KEY GEN PHASE

Key Generation(MK,S). The key generation algorithm takes as input the master key MK and a set of attributes S that describe the key. It outputs a private key SK

DECRYPT PHASE

Decrypt(PK, CT, SK). The decryption algorithm takes as input the public parameters PK, a ciphertext CT, which contains an access policy A, and a privatekey SK, which is a private key for a set S of attributes. If the set S of attributes satisfies the access structure A then the algorithm will decrypt the ciphertext andreturn a message M.

SYSTEM STUDY:

FEASIBILITY STUDY:

The feasibility of the project is analyzed in this phase and business proposal is put forth with a very general plan for the project and some cost estimates. During system analysis the feasibility study of the proposed system is to be carried out. This is to ensure that the proposed system is not a burden to the company.  For feasibility analysis, some understanding of the major requirements for the system is essential.

Three key considerations involved in the feasibility analysis are      

  • ECONOMICAL FEASIBILITY
  • TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
  • SOCIAL FEASIBILITY

ECONOMICAL FEASIBILITY:                  

This study is carried out to check the economic impact that the system will have on the organization. The amount of fund that the company can pour into the research and development of the system is limited. The expenditures must be justified. Thus the developed system as well within the budget and this was achieved because most of the technologies used are freely available. Only the customized products had to be purchased.

TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY:     

This study is carried out to check the technical feasibility, that is, the technical requirements of the system. Any system developed must not have a high demand on the available technical resources. Check here This will lead to high demands on the available technical resources. This will lead to high demands being placed on the client. The developed system must have a modest requirement, as only minimal or null changes are required for implementing this system.  

SOCIAL FEASIBILITY:  

The aspect of study is to check the level of acceptance of the system by the user. This includes the process of training the user to use the system efficiently. The user must not feel threatened by the system, instead must accept it as a necessity. The level of acceptance by the users solely depends on the methods that are employed to educate the user about the system and to make him familiar with it. His level of confidence must be raised so that he is also able to make some constructive criticism, which is welcomed, as he is the final user of the system.

SYSTEM TESTING:

Testing is a process of checking whether the developed system is working according to the original objectives and requirements. It is a set of activities that can be planned in advance and conducted systematically. Testing is vital to the success of the system. System testing makes a logical assumption that if all the parts of the system are correct, the global will be successfully achieved. In adequate testing if not testing leads to errors that may not appear even many months. This creates two problems, the time lag between the cause and the appearance of the problem and the effect of the system errors on the files and records within the system. A small system error can conceivably explode into a much larger Problem. Effective testing early in the purpose translates directly into long term cost savings from a reduced number of errors. Another reason for system testing is its utility, as a user-oriented vehicle before implementation. The best programs are worthless if it produces the correct outputs.

UNIT TESTING:

A program represents the logical elements of a system. For a program to run satisfactorily, it must compile and test data correctly and tie in properly with other programs. Achieving an error free program is the responsibility of the programmer. Program  testing  checks  for  two  types  of  errors:  syntax  and  logical. Syntax error is a program statement that violates one or more rules of the language in which it is written. An improperly defined field dimension or omitted keywords are common syntax errors. These errors are shown through error message generated by the computer. For Logic errors the programmer must examine the output carefully.

UNIT TESTING:

Description Expected result
Test for application window properties. All the properties of the windows are to be properly aligned and displayed.
Test for mouse operations. All the mouse operations like click, drag, etc. must perform the necessary operations without any exceptions.

FUNCTIONAL TESTING:

Functional testing of an application is used to prove the application delivers correct results, using enough inputs to give an adequate level of confidence that will work correctly for all sets of inputs. The functional testing will need to prove that the application works for each client type and that personalization function work correctly.When a program is tested, the actual output is compared with the expected output. When there is a discrepancy the sequence of instructions must be traced to determine the problem.  The process is facilitated by breaking the program into self-contained portions, each of which can be checked at certain key points. The idea is to compare program values against desk-calculated values to isolate the problems.

FUNCTIONAL TESTING:

Description Expected result
Test for all modules. All peers should communicate in the group.
Test for various peer in a distributed network framework as it display all users available in the group. The result after execution should give the accurate result.

NON-FUNCTIONAL TESTING:

 The Non Functional software testing encompasses a rich spectrum of testing strategies, describing the expected results for every test case. It uses symbolic analysis techniques. Latest Android & PHP Project Solutions with the good support This testing used to check that an application will work in the operational environment. Non-functional testing includes:

  • Load testing
  • Performance testing
  • Usability testing
  • Reliability testing
  • Security testing

LOAD TESTING:

An important tool for implementing system tests is a Load generator. A Load generator is essential for testing quality requirements such as performance and stress. A load can be a real load, that is, the system can be put under test to real usage by having actual telephone users connected to it. They will generate test input data for system test.

Load Testing

Description Expected result
It is necessary to ascertain that the application behaves correctly under loads when ‘Server busy’ response is received. Should designate another active node as a Server.

PERFORMANCE TESTING:

Performance tests are utilized in order to determine the widely defined performance of the software system such as execution time associated with various parts of the code, response time and device utilization. The intent of this testing is to identify weak points of the software system and quantify its shortcomings.

PERFORMANCE TESTING:

Description Expected result
This is required to assure that an application perforce adequately, having the capability to handle many peers, delivering its results in expected time and using an acceptable level of resource and it is an aspect of operational management.   Should handle large input values, and produce accurate result in a  expected time.  
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