Attribute Based Encryption (and more) for Nondeterministic Finite Automata from LWE

Abstract

Constructing Attribute Based Encryption (ABE) [56] for uniform models of computation from standard assumptions, is an important problem, about which very little is known. The only known ABE schemes in this setting that (i) avoid reliance on multilinear maps or indistinguishability obfuscation, (ii) support unbounded length inputs and (iii) permit unbounded key requests to the adversary in the security game, are by Waters from Crypto, 2012 [57] and its variants. Waters provided the first ABE for Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA) satisfying the above properties, from a parametrized or “q-type” assumption over bilinear maps. Generalizing this construction to Nondeterministic Finite Automata (NFA) was left as an explicit open problem in the same work, and has seen no progress to date. Constructions from other assumptions such as more standard pairing based assumptions, or lattice based assumptions has also proved elusive.