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if two communicating parties share a (symmetric) session key, k.

When one of the party wants to send a message 'm' to other, is it okay use {m}k as a digital signature?

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  • $\begingroup$ Who should verify? $\endgroup$
    – SEJPM
    Dec 8, 2015 at 21:03
  • $\begingroup$ Considering no third parties, because it's a symmetric key exchange. $\endgroup$ Dec 8, 2015 at 21:06

1 Answer 1

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No. ​ Let || be concatenation, let [E',D'] be any symmetric encryption scheme,
and then let [E,D] be given by ​ ​ ​ E(k,x) ​ = ​ 0 || E'(k,x) ​ ​ ​ and
D(k,empty_string) = empty_string ​ ​ ​ and ​ ​ ​ D(k,0||c) = D'(k,c) ​ ​ ​ and ​ D'(k,1||c) = c .
The efficiency and correctness conditions for [E,D] are trivial. ​ Since E can be simulated
from E' by just prepending a zero to each ciphertext, [E,D] will be IND-CPA if [E',D'] is.
However, with [E,D], one can trivially break {m}k as an authentication
scheme by just outputting something that starts with 1.

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