Pairing-Based Cryptography on Elliptic Curves

Abstract

We give a brief overview of a recent branch of Public Key Cryptography, the so called Pairing-based Cryptography or Identity-based Cryptography. We describe the Weil pairing and its applications to cryptosystems and cryptographic protocols based on pairings as well as the elliptic curves suitable for the implementation of this kind of cryptography, the so called pairing-friendly curves. Some recent results of the authors are included.