Identity-Based Key Agreement

Abstract

Identity-based public key cryptography was first proposed by Shamir in 1984 [665]. The idea is to avoid the need for public key certificates by making the public key publicly computable from the identification information of the owner. The identification information can include any desired fields such as real name, physical description or identification numbers. Identity-based cryptography avoids the difficulty of having to distribute public keys and thus avoids the need for a public key infrastructure, although parties still need to obtain and manage private keys.