List of papers found by Google.

Authentication

1. Universally Composable and Forward Secure RFID Authentication and Authenticated Key Exchange, by Tri Van Le, Mike Burmester and Breno de Medeiros.
   ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS 2007), Singapore, March 2007. (17.6% acceptance rate)

   Abstract. Recently, a universally composable framework for RFID authentication protocols providing availability, anonymity, and authenticity was proposed. In this paper we extend that framework to address forward-security issues in the presence of key compromise. We also introduce new, provably secure, and highly practical protocols for anonymous authentication and key-exchange by RFID devices. The new protocols are lightweight, requiring only a pseudo-random bit generator. The new protocols satisfy forward-secure anonymity, authenticity, and availability requirements in the Universal Composability model.

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2. Provably Secure Ubiquitous Systems: Universally Composable RFID Authentication Protocols, by Mike Burmester, Tri Van Le, Breno de Medeiros.
   Proceedings of 2nd International IEEE Conference in Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SECURECOMM 2006), Baltimore, MD, USA, August 2006. (25% acceptance rate)

   Abstract. This paper examines two unlinkably anonymous, simple RFID identification protocols that require only the ability to evaluate hash functions and generate random values, and that are provably secure against Byzantine adversaries. The main contribution is a universally composable security model tuned for RFID applications. By making specific setup, communication, and concurrency assumptions that are realistic in the RFID application setting, we arrive at a model that guarantees strong security and availability properties, while still permitting the design of practical RFID protocols. We show that two protocols are provably secure within the new security model. Our proofs do not employ random oracles—the protocols are shown to be secure in the standard model under the assumption of existence of pseudo-random function families.

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3. Secure anonymous RFID authentication protocols. Christy Chatmon, Tri Van Le and Mike Burmester.
   Technical Report TR-060112, Department of Computer Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA, 2006.

   Abstract. The growing use of Radio Frequency Identication (RFID) technology to enhance ubiquitous computing environments has only begun to be realized. It allows for the identification of objects and/or subjects remotely using attached RFID tags via a radio frequency channel, hence identification is achieved in a contactless manner. The advantages of using RFID technology is growing tremendously and is gaining much attention as is seen by an increase in its deployment, such as object tracking and monitoring, supply-chain management, and personalized information services. Numerous authentication protocols for RFID systems were proposed in an attempt to prevent unauthorized tracking and monitoring, impersonation or cloning, and information leakage. Many of these attempts fail to enforce anonymity and or only weak authentication and some fail under denial of service. In this paper we propose three anonymous RFID authentication protocols and prove that they are secure in the traditional cryptographic framework. Our model allows most of the threats that apply to RFIDs systems including, denial of service, impersonation, malicious traceability, information leakage through power analysis and active man-in-the middle attacks. Our protocols are educient and scalable.

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4. How To Prove That a Committed Number Is Prime, by Tri Van Le and Khanh Nguyen and Vijay Varadharajan.
   Advances in Cryptology, Proceedings of 6th International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptology and Information Security (ASIACRYPT 1999), Singapore, November 14-18, 1999. LNCS 1716, pp. 208-218, Springer Verlag.

   Abstract. The problem of proving a number is of a given arithmetic format with some prime elements, is raised in RSA undeniable signature, group signature and many other cryptographic protocols. So far, there have been several studies in literature on this topic. However, except the scheme of Camenisch and Michels, other works are only limited to some special forms of arithmetic format with prime elements. In Camenisch and Michels’s scheme, the main building block is a protocol to prove a committed number to be prime based on algebraic primality testing algorithms. In this paper, we propose a new protocol to prove a committed number to be prime. Our protocol is O(t) times more efficient than Camenisch and Michels’s protocol, where t is the security parameter. This results in O(t) time improvement for the overall scheme.

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5. Remarks on Entity Authentication, (in review) by Tri Van Le and Mike Burmester.
   Information Processing Letters, Elsevier, 2007.

   Abstract. We analyze five basic entity authentication protocols in the security models proposed by Bellare-Rogaway and Canetti-Krawczyk and show that each model captures disparate aspects of entity authentication.

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Cryptanalysis

1. Complementation-like and Cyclic properties of AES Round Functions (Invited Paper), by Tri Van Le and Rudiger Sparr and Ralph Wernsdorf and Yvo Desmedt.
   Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Advanced Encryption Standard (AES 2004), pp. 128- 141, May 2004, Bonn, Germany. LNCS 3373, Springer Verlag, 2005.

   Abstract. While it is known previously that the cycle lengths of individual components of the AES round function are very small, we demonstrate here that the cycle length of the S-box combined with the ShiftRow and MixColumn transformation is at least 10^205. This result is obtained by providing new invariances of the complete AES round function without the key addition. Furthermore, we consider self-duality properties of the AES round function and derive a property analogous to the complementation property of the DES round function. These results confirm the assessments given in other publications that the AES components have several unexpected structural properties.

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Steganography and Secret Sharing

1. Efficient Public Key Steganography Secure Against Adaptive Chosen Stegotext Attacks, by Tri Van Le and Kaoru Kurosawa.
   Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Information Hiding (IH2006), Washington DC, USA, July 2006.
   Earlier version available as IACR Technical Report 2003/244, November 2003.

   Abstract. We provide construction of steganographic schemes secure against adaptive chosen stegotext attacks. Our constructions achieve embedding rate equals to the Shannon entropy bound on steganographic channel capacity. Further the covertext distribution can be given as either an integrable probability function or as a random covertext sampler. We also introduce steganographic codes that are of interests in constructing other steganographic protocols such as steganographic secret sharing or steganographic distributed computations.

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2. Error Correcting and Complexity Aspects of Linear Secret Sharing Schemes, by Yvo Desmedt and Kaoru Kurosawa and Tri Van Le.
   Proceedings of 6th Information Security Conference 2003 (ISC 2003), pp. 396-407, Bristol, England. LNCS 2851, Springer Verlag, 2003. (23% acceptance rate)

   Abstract. Linear secret sharing schemes and general access structures have played a key role in modern cryptography. Cramer-Damgård-Maurer recently proved that any linear secret sharing scheme over a finite field can be a verifiable one. We give a simple proof based on error-correcting codes. Our proof allows us to generalize the Cramer-Damgård-Maurer’s result to linear schemes over modules, which played an important role in threshold cryptography, i.e. any existing linear secret sharing scheme over a module can be changed into a verifiable one. We then reflect on another aspect of linear secret sharing. While there has been lots of research on bounds in general access secret sharing schemes, little has been done on the computational complexity aspects. In this paper we also demonstrate that verifying whether a linear scheme is a secret sharing scheme for a given access structure is coNP-complete. The later result relates to the problem cheating sharedealer, the dual problem of secret sharing.

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3. Efficient Provably Secure Public Key Steganography, by Tri Van Le.
   IACR Cryptology Archive, Technical Report 2003/156, November, 2003.

   Abstract. We construct efficient public key steganographic schemes, without resort to any special existence assumption such as unbiased functions. This is the first time such a construction is obtained. Not only our constructions are secure, but also are essentially optimal and have no error decoding. We achieve this by designing a new primitive called P-codes.

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4. Moire Cryptography, by Yvo Desmedt and Tri Van Le.
   7th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security 2000 (ACM CCS 2000), pp. 116-124, Athens, Greece. ACM Press 2002. (21% acceptance rate)

   Abstract. As pointed out by other researchers, one of the central problems with applicability of visual cryptography is the random nature of its secret shares. It makes secret shares not suited for carrying or for transmission over an open channel. In this paper, we apply concepts of steganography to create secret sharing schemes whose shares are realistically looking images. Our new technique is based on an idea of employing Moire patterns for producing images. The advantage of this scheme over others is that it does not require a complicated algorithm, thus a computer, to decrypt the ciphertext. The cleartext can be read simply by putting the ciphertexts one onto the other. We therefore give a solution to the above mentioned problem with a novel type of visual secret sharing schemes, whose secrecy and anonymity are both satisfied.

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5. Nonbinary Audio Cryptography, by Yvo Desmedt, Tri Van Le and J.-J. Quisquater and .
   2nd International Workshop on Information Hiding 1999, Dresden, Germany. Springer Verlag 1999.

   Abstract. Visual cryptography, introduced by Naor-Shamir at Eurocrypt'94, only requires primitive technology to decrypt the ciphertext. However, it has the disadvantage the ``ciphertext'', a random looking transparency, is very suspicious to a censor. The solutions recently proposed by Desmedt-Hou-Quisquater to avoid these problems are either non-user friendly, have a low bandwidth or are untested. In this paper we present three schemes that overcome these problems. As in one of the Desmedt-Hou-Quisquater's schemes, a share (or a ciphertext) corresponds to an audio signal, such as music. While in the Desmedt-Hou-Quisquater scheme the plaintext was binary, in our schemes the plaintext can also be speech, or any other audio signal. By introducing variations of the one-time pad we guarantee perfect secrecy. The ciphertext is non-suspicious, since it sounds with high quality as normal music.

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Watermarking

1. Attack on Sebe, Domingo-Ferrer and Herrera-Joancomarti fingerprinting schemes, by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le.
   IEE Electronic Letters, pp. 172-173, Vol. 40, Issue 3, February 2004.

   Abstract. Sebe´ and Domingo-Ferrer proposed in a recent Letter a fingerprinting scheme that exploits the properties of dual binary Hamming codes to reduce the length of fingerprints. The authors show that this scheme is subject to an attack in which a collusion of (any) three buyers can frame an innocent buyer.

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2. Short c-secure Fingerprinting Codes, by Tri Van Le and Mike Burmester and Jiangyi Hu.
   Proceedings of 6th Information Security Conference 2003 (ISC 2003), pp. 422-427, Bristol, England. LNCS 2851, Springer Verlag, 2003. (23% acceptance rate)

   Abstract. We consider c-secure fingerprinting codes for copyright protection. We construct ap robabilistic fingerprinting code and show that at least one colluder in a group of up to c users can be traced with high probability. We prove that this code is shorter than the Boneh-Shaw code. In addition, we show that it is assymptotically optimal when c is constant.

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3. Cryptanalysis of UCLA Watermarking Schemes for Intellectual Property Protection, by Tri Van Le and Yvo Desmedt.
   5th International Workshop in Information Hiding 2002 (IH 2002), pp. 213-225, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. LNCS 2578, Springer Verlag 2002.

   Abstract. We analyze four recently proposed watermarking schemes for intellectual property protection of digital designs. The first scheme watermarks solutions of a hard optimization problem, namely the graph coloring problem. The other three schemes belong to a family of techniques for watermarking digital circuits on programmable hardware. They are different from the usual image and audio watermarking since they must maintain correctness of the watermarked objects. Thus their watermarks cannot be embedded in the form of small errors as usually done in audio and visual watermarking. Although constraint-based watermarking schemes existed long before, these schemes are the first ones to protect hardware designs. In this paper, we apply a novel method to break the first of these schemes. We show how to modify a watermarked object in such a way that every signature strings can be extracted from it. Thus anyone can claim ownership of the object, yet leave no traces of who leaked the object. According to our best knowledge, this method is new and it may be of its own interest. In the remaining three schemes, we show how to locate and to remove the watermark embedded in the object, without knowing the secret key used in the embedding. Keywords: cryptanalysis, watermarking, watermark analysis.

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Secure Mobile and Sensor Networks

1. Adaptive Gossip Protocols: managing redundancy in dense ad hoc networks, by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le and Alec Yasinsac.
   Journal of Ad hoc networks, Elsevier, 2007, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp 286-297.

   Abstract. Many ad hoc routing algorithms rely on broadcast flooding for location discovery or, more generally, for secure routing applications. Flooding is a robust algorithm but because of its extreme redundancy, it is impractical in dense networks. Indeed in large wireless networks, the use of flooding algorithms may lead to broadcast storms where the number of collisions is so large that it causes system failure. To prevent broadcast storms, many mechanisms that reduce redundant transmissions have been proposed that reduce retransmission overhead either deterministically or probabilistically. Gossip is a probabilistic algorithm in which packet retransmission is based on the outcome of coin tosses. The retransmission probability can be fixed, dynamic or adaptive. With dynamic gossip, local information is used to determine the retransmission probability. With adaptive gossip, the decision to relay is adjusted adaptively based on the outcome of coin tosses, the local network structure, and the local response to the flooding call. The goal of gossip is to minimize the number of retransmissions, while retaining the main benefits of flooding, e.g., universal coverage, minimal state retention, and path length preservation. In this paper we consider ways to reduce the number of redundant transmissions in flooding while guaranteeing security. We present several new gossip protocols that exploit local connectivity to adaptively correct propagation failures and protect against Byzantine attacks. A main contribution of this work is that we introduce a cell-grid approach that allows us to analytically prove performance and security protocol properties. The last two gossip protocols that we give are fully adaptive, i.e., they automatically correct all faults and guarantee delivery, the first such protocols to the best of our knowledge.

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2. Reactive and Proactive Approaches to Secure Routing in MANETs, by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le.
   Proceedings of International Workshop on Research Challenges in Security and Privacy for Mobile and Wireless Networks (WSPWN’06), Miami, USA, March 2006.

   Abstract. Mobile ad hoc networks are collections of wireless mobile nodes with links that are made or broken in an arbitrary way. They have constrained resources, restricted broadcast range and no fixed infrastructure. For these networks communication is achieved via routes whose nodes relay packets. Several routing algorithms have been proposed in the literature. These focus mainly on educiency with security relegated to weak adversary models. In this paper we consider the problem of secure routing in malicious environments. We propose two complementary solutions: an optimistic algorithm that traces malicious behavior and an adaptive multipath algorithm that tolerates malicious behavior, and prove that they are secure.

3. Towards Provable Security for Ubiquitous Applications, by Mike Burmester, Tri Van Le, Breno de Medeiros.
   Proceedings of 11th Australian Conference on Information Security and Privacy (ACISP 2006), pp. 295-312, Melbourne, Australia, July 2006. LNCS 4058, Springer Verlag. (26% acceptance rate)

   Abstract. The emergence of computing environments where smart devices are embedded pervasively in the physical world has made possible many interesting applications and has triggered several newresearch areas. Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET), sensor networks and radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are all examples of such pervasive systems. Operating on an openmediumand lacking a fixed infrastructure, these systems suffer from critical security vulnerabilities for which few satisfactory current solutions exist, particularly with respect to availability and denialof- service. In addition, most of the extant knowledge in network security and cryptography cannot be readily transferred to the newer settingswhich involve weaker devices and less structured networks. In this paper we investigate the security of pervasive systems and focus on availability issues in malicious environments. We articulate a formal security framework that is tuned for the analysis of protocols for constrained systems and show how this can be used with applications that involve MANET and RFID systems. In our approach we shall use optimistic protocols for which the overhead is minimal when the adversary is passive. When the adversary is active, depending on the application, the additional cost is either used to trace malicious behavior or born by nonconstrained components of the system. Our goal is to design mechanisms that will support self-healing and promote a fault-free system state, or a stable system state, in the presence of a Byzantine adversary.

4. Security Issues in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (Book Chapter), by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le.
   Network Security (Book), Scott Huang, David MacCallum, and Ding Zhu Du (Editors). Springer Verlag, In Printing, November 2005.

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5. Weathering the storm: managing redundancy and security in ad hoc networks, by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le and Alec Yasinsac. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Wireless and Ad hoc networks (ADHOC-NOW 2004), Vancouver, British Columbia, pp. 96-107, July 22-24, 2004. LNCS 3158, Springer Verlag. (17% acceptance rate)

   Abstract. Many ad hoc routing algorithms rely on broadcast flooding for location discovery or more generally for secure routing applications, particularly when dealing with Byzantine threats. Flooding is a robust algorithm but, because of its extreme redundancy, it is impractical in dense networks. Indeed in large wireless networks, the use of flooding algorithms may lead to a broadcast storm in which the number of collisions is so large that we get system failure. Further reducing unnecessary transmissions greatly improves energy efficiency of such networks. Several variants have been proposed to reduce the relay overhead either deterministically or probabilistically. Gossip is a probabilistic algorithm, in which packet relaying is based on the outcome of coin tosses. The relay probability can be fixed, dynamic or adaptive. With dynamic Gossip, local information (local connectivity) is used. With adaptive Gossip, the decision to relay is adjusted adaptively based on the outcome of coin tosses, the local network structure and the local response to the flooding call. The goal of gossiping is to minimize the number of relays, while retaining the main benefits of flooding, i.e., effective distance. In this paper we consider ways to reduce the number of redundant transmissions in broadcast flooding while guaranteeing security. We present several gossip type protocols, which exploit local connectivity and adaptively correct local relay failures. These use a (geodesic) cell based approach and preserve cell-distance. Our last two protocols are non probabilistic and guarantee delivery, the first such protocols to the best of our knowledge.

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6. Secure Communications in Ad hoc networks, by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le. Proceedings of 5th Annual IEEE Information Assurance Workshop (IAW 2004), USMA, West Point, New York, pp. 234-241, June 2004.

   Abstract. The next generation of IT applications is expected to rely heavily on ad hoc networks. However, before they can be successfully deployed severak security threats must be addressed. These threats are due mainly to the ad hoc nature of these networks. Consequently it may be much harder (or even impossible) to establish a secure communication channel that can tolerate malicious faults. In this paper we first propose a general model for ad hoc networks based on Bayesian inferences that satisfies the basic mobility requirements of such networks and formally define our requirements for secure communication. We then propose a secure communication protocol that will trace malicious faults.

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7. Secure Multipath Communication in Mobile Adhoc Networks, by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le.
   Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing (ITCC 2004), Vol. 2, pp. 405-409, Las Vegas, USA, April 5-7, 2004.

   Abstract. Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are collections of autonomous mobile nodes with links that are made or broken in an arbitrary way. They have no fixed infrastructure and may have constrained resources. The next generation of IT applications is expected to rely heavily on such networks. However, before they can be successfully deployed several security threats must be addressed. These are mainly due to the ad hoc nature of these networks. Consequently it may be much harder (or even impossible) to establish routing communication paths that can tolerate malicious faults. In this paper we first propose a general Bayesian model that satisfies the basic mobility requirements of a MANET and define the requirements for secure communication in this model. We then consider several multipath routing schemes and propose a new adaptive multipath routing algorithm that satisfies our security requirements.

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8. Tracing Byzantine Faults in Ad Hoc Networks, by Mike Burmester and Tri Van Le and Matt Weiss.
   Proceedings of IASTED International Conference on Communication, Network, and Information Security 2003 (CNIS 2003), pp. 105-108, ACTA Press, New York, USA, 2003.

   Abstract. Recently a Byzantine faults tracing protocol has been proposed. This combines a reliability metric based on passed history with an adaptive probing technique. In this paper we first show that such an approach is fundamentally flawed and cannot be used to detect malicious faults. We then propose a new tracing algorithm that exploits a basic property of broadcast channels, ping channels, and authentication mechanisms, to locate Byzantine faults.

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9. Optimistic Fault Tracing and Secure Adaptive Multipath Routing in MANETs, (in review) by Tri Van Le and Mike Burmester.
   Journal of Wireless Networks. Springer Verlag, 2007.

   Abstract. Mobile ad hoc networks are collections of wireless mobile nodes with links that are made or broken in an arbitrary way. They have constrained resources, restricted broadcast range and no fixed infrastructure. For these networks communication is achieved via routes whose nodes relay packets. Several routing algorithms have been proposed in the literature. These focus mainly on efficiency, with security relegated to weak adversarial models. In this paper we consider the problem of securing routing algorithms in malicious adversary models. We propose two complementary solutions: an optimistic algorithm that will trace malicious behavior and an adaptive multipath algorithm that will tolerate malicious behavior.

Preference Elicitation

1. Incremental Constraint-Based Elicitation of Multi-Attribute Utility Functions, by Tri Van Le and Peter Haddawy.
   AAAI Symposium on Interactive and Mixed-Initiative Decision-Theoretic Systems, Stanford University, California, March 1998. ISBN 978-1-57735-048-4.

   Abstract. We introduce a novel approach to preference elicitation using polyhedral-cone dominances and give an incremental algorithm that derive new preferences from existing ones. Our algorithm works with general utility functions that form a linear space. The algorithm also elicits preferred outcomes much quicker than known approaches.

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2. Case-Based Preference Elicitation, by Vu Ha and Tri Van Le and Peter Haddawy.
   AAAI Symposium on Interactive and Mixed-Initiative Decision-Theoretic Systems, Stanford University, California, March 1998. ISBN 978-1-57735-048-4.

   Abstract. We introduce a novel probabilistic distance measure among partial orders on a given set. The measure is based on probabilistic agrement between the two orders. We then show how to use this measure for case-based preference elicitation by identifying a nearest user profile given existing user preferences.

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Algorithmic Algebra

1. Normal form computation for cubic curves, by Tri Van Le.
   International Conference on Algebra, Geometry, and Computer Algebra, Hanoi Institute of Mathematics, Hanoi, August 19-23, 1996.

   Abstract. We calculate the normal forms of nonsingular plane cubic curves using its inflection points.

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Dissertation and Thesis

• Information Hiding, Dissertation, by Tri Van Le, College of Arts and Sciences, Florida State University, May 2004.
• Covert Cryptography, Thesis, by Tri Van Le, College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, August 1999.
• Algorithms on monomial curves, Thesis, by Tri Van Le, Department of Mathematics, Mechanics, and Computer Science, Vietnam National University, June 1997.