A new ring signature scheme with signer-admission property

In this paper. we introduce an extended ring signature scheme in which the actual signer has the ability to admit to having signed a document at his will. Generally speaking, this scheme can be considered as an extension and improvement of the ring signature suggested by Rivest et al. in 2001. The proposed scheme is called signer-admission ring signature which combines the idea of the designated confirmer signatures proposed by Chaum in 1994 and the designated verifier proofs proposed by Jakobsson et al. in 1996. This paper presents a scenario explaining why the signer-admission property is valuable in real-life applications. An actual signer may possibly want to expose himself if, in doing so, he will acquire an enormous benefit. Here, we propose a generic construction of the signer-admission ring signature as well as a demonstration modified from Rivest et al.'s scheme to achieve signer-admission. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.