A group signature scheme with strong separability

Group signatures, introduced by Chaum and van Heijst, allow members of a group to sign messages anonymously on behalf of the group. Only a designated group manager is able to identify the group member who issued a given signature. Many applications of group signatures, for example, electronic market, require that the group manager can be split into a membership manager and a revocation manager. The former is responsible for adding new members to the group. The latter is responsible for opening signatures. Previously proposed group signatures schemes can only achieve a weak form of separability. That is, the revocation manager and the membership manager must work in concert to reveal the identity of the signer. In this paper, we propose a group signature scheme with strong separability in which the revocation manager can work without the involvement of the membership manager. 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.