In this paper we introduce the notion of Algebraic (Trapdoor) One Way Functions, which, roughly speaking, captures and formalizes many of the properties of number-theoretic one-way functions. Informally, a (trapdoor) one way function F:X→Y is said to be algebraic if X and Y are (finite) abelian cyclic groups, the function is homomorphic i.e. F(x) F(y)=F(xy), and is ring-homomorphic, meaning that it is possible to compute linear operations in the exponent over some ring (which may be different from Zp where p is the order of the underlying group X) without knowing the bases. Moreover, algebraic OWFs must be flexibly one-way in the sense that given y=F(x), it must be infeasible to compute (x', d) such that F(x')=yd (for d≠0). Interestingly, algebraic one way functions can be constructed from a variety of standard number theoretic assumptions, such as RSA, Factoring and CDH over bilinear groups.As a second contribution of this paper, we show several applications where algebraic (trapdoor) OWFs turn out to be useful. In particular:. •Publicly Verifiable Secure Outsourcing of Polynomials: We present efficient solutions which work for rings of arbitrary size and characteristic. When instantiating our protocol with the RSA/Factoring based algebraic OWFs we obtain the first solution which supports small field size, is efficient and does not require bilinear maps to obtain public verifiability.•Linearly-Homomorphic Signatures: We give a direct construction of FDH-like linearly homomorphic signatures from algebraic (trapdoor) one way permutations. Our constructions support messages and homomorphic operations over arbitrary rings and in particular even small fields such as F2. While it was already known how to realize linearly homomorphic signatures over small fields (Boneh-Freeman, Eurocrypt 2011), from lattices in the random oracle model, ours are the first schemes achieving this in a very efficient way from Factoring/RSA.•Batch execution of Sigma protocols: We construct a simple and efficient Sigma protocol for any algebraic OWP and show a batch version of it, i.e. a protocol where many statements can be proven at a cost (slightly superior) of the cost of a single execution of the original protocol. Given our RSA/Factoring instantiations of algebraic OWP, this yields, to the best of our knowledge, the first batch verifiable Sigma protocol for groups of unknown order. © 2015 Elsevier B.V.
