Decentralized multi-authority ABE for \(\mathsf{NC}^1\) from BDH (Q2697676)

Decentralized multi-authority attribute-based encryption (\(\mathsf{MA}\)-\(\mathsf{ABE}\)) is a strengthening of standard ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption so that there is no trusted central authority: Any party can become an authority and there is no requirement for any global coordination other than the creation of an initial set of common reference parameters. Essentially, any party can act as an authority for some attribute by creating a public key of its own and issuing private keys to different users that reflect their attributes. This paper presents the first \(\mathsf{MA}\)-\(\mathsf{ABE}\) proven secure under the standard search variant of bilinear Diffie-Hellman (\(\mathsf{CBDH}\)) and in the random oracle model. Their scheme supports all access policies captured by \(\mathsf{NC}^1\) circuits. All previous constructions are proven secure in the random-oracle model and additionally are based on decision assumptions such as the \(\mathsf{DLIN}\) assumption, non-standard \(q\)-type assumptions, or subspace decision assumptions over composite-order bilinear groups.