A Cryptographic Solution for General Access Control

As one of the most popular information safeguarding mechanisms, access control is widely deployed in information systems. However, access control approach suffers from a tough problem, i.e. system administrators must be unconditionally trusted. Cryptographic substitutes have been developed to solve the above problem. In particular, hierarchical encryption, as an alternate solution of access control in a hierarchy, has been intensively studied. In this paper, we propose a cryptographic solution for general access control based on Chinese Remainder Theorem. Our solution has two categories: data based solution and key based solution. In contrast to the most recent hierarchical encryption system: Ray, Ray and Narasimhamurthi's system [1], our solution is more efficient, secure and flexible. Moreover, we introduce an efficient mechanism for authorization alterations. This paper ends with a set of experimental results that support our research.