We consider the problem of sending messages into the future, commonly known as timed release cryptography. Existing schemes for this task either solve the relative time problem with uncontrollable, coarse-grained release time (time-lock puzzle approach) or do not provide anonymity to senders and/or receivers and are not scalable (serverbased approach). Using a bilinear pairing on any Gap Diffie-Hellman group, we solve this problem by giving scalable, server-passive and user-anonymous timed release public-key encryption schemes allowing precise absolute release time specifications. Unlike the existing server-based schemes, the trusted time server in our scheme is completely passive — no interaction between it and the sender or receiver is needed; it is even not aware of the existence of a user, thus assuring the privacy of a message and the anonymity of both its sender and receiver. Besides, our scheme also has a number of desirable properties including a single form of update for ...
Aldar C.-F. Chan, Ian F. Blake