Abstract. The Boneh-Boyen signature scheme is a pairing based short signature scheme which is provably secure in the standard model under the q-Strong Diffie-Hellman assumption. In this paper, we prove the converse of this statement, and show that forging Boneh-Boyen signatures is actually equivalent to solving the q-Strong Diffie-Hellman problem. Using this equivalence, we exhibit an algorithm which, on the vast majority of pairing-friendly curves, recovers Boneh-Boyen private keys in O(p 2 5 +ε ) time, using O(p 1 5 +ε ) signature queries. We present implementation results comparing the performance of our algorithm and traditional discrete logarithm algorithms such as Pollard's lambda algorithm and Pollard's rho algorithm. We also discuss some possible countermeasures and strategies for mitigating the impact of these findings.
Instant messaging is a prevalent form of communication across the Internet, yet most instant messaging services provide little security against eavesdroppers or impersonators. There are a variety of existing systems that aim to solve this problem, but the one that provides the highest level of privacy is Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR), which aims to give instant messaging conversations the level of privacy available in a face-to-face conversation. In the most recent redesign of OTR, as well as increasing the security of the protocol, one of the goals of the designers was to make OTR easier to use, without users needing to understand details of computer security such as keys or fingerprints.To determine if this design goal has been met, we conducted a user study of the OTR plugin for the Pidgin instant messaging client using the think aloud method. As a result of this study we have identified a variety of usability flaws remaining in the design of OTR. These flaws that we have discovered have the ability to cause confusion, make the program unusable, and even decrease the level of security to users of OTR. We discuss how these errors can be repaired, as well as identify an area that requires further research to improve its usability.
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