SKIP: A Secure Key Issuing Scheme for Peer-to-Peer Networks

Identity based cryptography (IBC) was introduced into peer-to-peer (P2P) networks recently for identity verification and authentication purposes. However, current IBC-based solutions could not address the problem of secure private key issuing. In this paper we propose SKIP: a novel secure key issuing scheme for P2P networks using IBC. We present an IBC infrastructure setup phase, a peer registration solution using Shamir's (k, n) secret sharing scheme, and a secure key issuing scheme, which adopts key generate center (KGC) and key privacy authorities (KPAs) to issue private keys to peers securely in order to enable the IBC systems to be more acceptable and applicable in real-world P2P networks. Furthermore, to maintain the security of KPAs, we develop a scheme to authenticate KPAs using Byzantine fault tolerance protocol. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show that SKIP performs effectively and efficiently, and is able to support large scale networks.