Linked or unlinked: A systematic review of linkable ring signature schemesPPT
AbstractThis article presents a systematic review of linkable ring signature ...
AbstractThis article presents a systematic review of linkable ring signature schemes, which are a type of privacy-preserving technology that allows entities to remain anonymous while enabling tracing of digital signatures. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the various linkable ring signature schemes proposed in the literature, and evaluate their security, efficiency, and practicality. Our results indicate that while unlinked ring signature schemes provide better privacy protection, linked ring signature schemes are more suitable for traceability and accountability requirements. We also identify key challenges and open issues in the field, and discuss potential future research directions.IntroductionLinkable ring signature schemes (LRSSs) are a form of privacy-preserving digital signature technology that allows multiple entities to jointly generate a collective digital signature while maintaining individual anonymity within the group. These schemes have numerous applications in areas such as data authentication, traceability, and privacy-enhanced communication. LRSSs have received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners due to their ability to balance privacy and accountability, two often competing requirements in many real-world scenarios.BackgroundLinkable ring signature schemes have emerged as a powerful privacy-enhancing technology in the digital world. They were first proposed in 2001 by Boneh and Franklin, who introduced the concept of "linkable anonymity" to enable the tracing of digital signatures while preserving the anonymity of signers within a group. Since then, numerous LRSS schemes have been proposed, with varying degrees of security, efficiency, and practicality.MethodologyIn this article, we perform a systematic review of linkable ring signature schemes. We compile a list of representative LRSS proposals that have been proposed in the literature and analyze each scheme based on its security, efficiency, and practicality. To perform our analysis, we consider factors such as cryptographic primitives used, key generation and verification complexities, ring size, anonymity set size, traceability ability, and computational costs.ResultsOur analysis reveals that unlinked ring signature schemes provide better privacy protection but are generally less efficient and practical compared to linked ring signature schemes. On the other hand, linked ring signature schemes offer better traceability and accountability properties but may sacrifice some degree of privacy. We also observe that while some LRSS proposals achieve improved efficiency by sacrificing anonymity or traceability properties, others attempt to balance these competing requirements through innovative cryptographic designs.DiscussionOur findings suggest that there is no single "best" LRSS scheme for all applications. The choice between linked and unlinked ring signature schemes should be informed by specific use cases and requirements. In scenarios where privacy is paramount, unlinked ring signature schemes may be preferred. However, in scenarios where traceability and accountability are essential, linked ring signature schemes may be more suitable. We also identify several open challenges and issues in the field of linkable ring signatures, including the need for efficient and secure multi-signer LRSSs that support dynamic membership updates and scalability issues related to large anonymity sets.ConclusionThis article presents a comprehensive review of linkable ring signature schemes, comparing and contrasting their security, efficiency, and practicality. Our analysis highlights the trade-offs between privacy protection and traceability/accountability requirements in different LRSS proposals. We also discuss key challenges and open issues in the field and suggest potential future research directions that aim to further enhance the privacy-preserving capabilities of linkable ring signatures.
