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ABSTRACT

We study the problem of secure message transmission among a group of parties in an insecure asynchronous network, where an adversary may repeatedly break into some parties for transient periods of time. A solution for this task is needed in order to use proactive cryptosystems in wide-area networks with loose synchronization. Parties have access to a secure hardware device that stores some cryptographic keys, but can carry out only a very limited set of operations. We provide a formal model of the system, using the framework for asynchronous reactive systems proposed by Pfitzmann and Waidner (Symposium on Security & Privacy, 2001), present a protocol for proactive message transmission, and prove it secure using the composability property of the framework.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.4 Communications Management

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.6 Security and Protection

General Terms:
Reliability, Security

Keywords:
proactive security, secure communication