<p>The need for broadcast encryption arises when a sender wishes to securely distribute messages to varying subsets of receivers, using a broadcast channel, for instance in a pay-TV scenario. This is done by selecting subsets of users and giving all users in the same subset a common decryption key. The subsets will in general be overlapping so that each user belongs to many subsets and has several different decryption keys. When the sender wants to send a message to some users, the message is encrypted using keys that those users have. In this thesis we describe some broadcast encryption schemes that have been proposed in the literature. We focus on stateless schemes which do not require receivers to update their decryption keys after the initial keys have been received; particularly we concentrate on the Subset Difference (SD) scheme.</p><p>We consider the effects that the logical placement of the receivers in the tree structure used by the SD scheme has on the number of required transmissions for each message. Bounds for the number of required transmissions are derived based on the adjacency of receivers in the tree structure. The tree structure itself is also studied, also resulting in bounds on the number of required transmissions based on the placement of the users in the tree structure.</p><p>By allowing a slight discrepancy between the set of receivers that the sender intends to send to and the set of receivers that actually can decrypt the message, we can reduce the cost in number of transmissions per message. We use the concept of distortion to quantify the discrepancy and develop three simple algorithms to illustrate how the cost and distortion are related.</p> / Report code: LIU-Tek-Lic-2005:70.

<p>Broadcast encryption is a fairly new area in cryptology. It was first addressed in 1992, and the research in this area has been large ever since. In short, broadcast encryption is used for efficient and secure broadcasting to an authorized group of users. This group can change dynamically, and in some cases only one-way communication between the sender and receivers is available. An example of this is digital TV transmissions via satellite, in which only the paying customers can decrypt and view the broadcast. </p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to develop a general Java framework for implementation and performance analysis of broadcast encryption algorithms. In addition to the actual framework a few of the most common broadcast encryption algorithms (Complete Subtree, Subset Difference, and the Logical Key Hierarchy scheme) have been implemented in the system. </p><p>This master’s thesis project was defined by and carried out at the Information Theory division at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ISY), Linköping Institute of Technology, during the first half of 2004.</p>

The need for broadcast encryption arises when a sender wishes to securely distribute messages to varying subsets of receivers, using a broadcast channel, for instance in a pay-TV scenario. This is done by selecting subsets of users and giving all users in the same subset a common decryption key. The subsets will in general be overlapping so that each user belongs to many subsets and has several different decryption keys. When the sender wants to send a message to some users, the message is encrypted using keys that those users have. In this thesis we describe some broadcast encryption schemes that have been proposed in the literature. We focus on stateless schemes which do not require receivers to update their decryption keys after the initial keys have been received; particularly we concentrate on the Subset Difference (SD) scheme. We consider the effects that the logical placement of the receivers in the tree structure used by the SD scheme has on the number of required transmissions for each message. Bounds for the number of required transmissions are derived based on the adjacency of receivers in the tree structure. The tree structure itself is also studied, also resulting in bounds on the number of required transmissions based on the placement of the users in the tree structure. By allowing a slight discrepancy between the set of receivers that the sender intends to send to and the set of receivers that actually can decrypt the message, we can reduce the cost in number of transmissions per message. We use the concept of distortion to quantify the discrepancy and develop three simple algorithms to illustrate how the cost and distortion are related. / <p>Report code: LIU-Tek-Lic-2005:70.</p>

Broadcast encryption is a fairly new area in cryptology. It was first addressed in 1992, and the research in this area has been large ever since. In short, broadcast encryption is used for efficient and secure broadcasting to an authorized group of users. This group can change dynamically, and in some cases only one-way communication between the sender and receivers is available. An example of this is digital TV transmissions via satellite, in which only the paying customers can decrypt and view the broadcast. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a general Java framework for implementation and performance analysis of broadcast encryption algorithms. In addition to the actual framework a few of the most common broadcast encryption algorithms (Complete Subtree, Subset Difference, and the Logical Key Hierarchy scheme) have been implemented in the system. This master’s thesis project was defined by and carried out at the Information Theory division at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ISY), Linköping Institute of Technology, during the first half of 2004.