A certificateless linearly homomorphic signature scheme for network coding and its application in the IoT

Network coding is an effective method to optimize network throughput and improve routing reliability, and has been widely used in a decentralized Internet of Things system. However, the packet-mixing property of network coding renders transmission susceptible to pollution attacks, which may prevent the reconstruction of the original file. A homomorphic signature scheme is a powerful tool that enables network coding to combat pollution attacks. Although a series of homomorphic signature schemes already exists, no construction has been proposed to support both homomorphic network coding signatures and the certificateless characteristic. In this paper, we construct a certificateless linearly homomorphic signature scheme for network coding, thus avoiding the disadvantages of certificate management and key escrow problems. We then prove the security of the scheme in a random oracle model against an adaptively chosen dataset attack under two types of adversaries. Moreover, performance analysis results show that our scheme has a lower communication overhead and enjoys a comparable computation cost with related schemes.