Monotone digital signatures: an application in software copy protection

Abstract

In settings where hard-copy materials which are not allowed to be reproduced by any means but are massively delivered to users security specialists distinguish a real threat which is duplication. Such materials may be banknotes, legal documents like diplomas, CDs or even electronic materials distributed over the internet. One of the ways to fight duplication, software piracy and not only, is the usage of digital signatures. For this reason algorithms and advanced techniques of digital signatures are used nowadays which proved or at least pretended to be secure. Their security is fragile if the secrecy of the key is compromised. Even though the compromise happened unpremeditatedly or as a result of an attack, this causes the production of digital signatures even by ‘differently interested’ people. In our paper we are going to introduce a digital signature scheme which is based on Rabin scheme. According to this idea we have built an ID generation scheme which can be used in many situations where is needed such a level of security. We will apply this technique in software copy protection.