Publicly Verifiable Symmetric Cryptography for IoT

The patent divides the cryptographic computation into two distinct parts: lightweight symmetric encryption operations performed on resource-constrained IoT devices, and computationally intensive homomorphic evaluation performed on powerful cloud servers. This segmentation allows each component to operate in its optimal environment, with the IoT device only performing minimal local computation while the cloud handles the heavy cryptographic lifting.

The patent introduces a cloud server as an intermediary that receives encrypted data from IoT devices, performs the computationally burdensome homomorphic evaluation, and returns results to the devices. This intermediary absorbs the computational burden that would otherwise exhaust the limited resources of IoT devices, enabling secure communication without requiring high local computational power.

The patent segments the computational workload by implementing symmetric encryption algorithms (like AES) on IoT devices that require only basic computational capabilities, while delegating complex homomorphic evaluation operations to cloud servers with high computational capacity. This allows IoT devices to maintain security without requiring sophisticated local processing power.

The patent uses encrypted copies of data and computations. Instead of processing plain text locally, the system encrypts data and performs computations on the encrypted copies using homomorphic encryption. This allows the IoT device to send encrypted data to the cloud, which processes copies of the data without revealing the actual content, thereby reducing local computational requirements while maintaining security.

The patent merges symmetric encryption with homomorphic encryption in a hybrid system. The symmetric encryption component provides computational efficiency and privacy for data at rest and during transmission on IoT devices, while the homomorphic encryption component adds public verifiability and non-repudiation capabilities. By combining these two approaches, the system achieves both efficiency and verifiability that neither component could provide alone.

The patent creates a multi-functional cryptographic system where a single hybrid approach serves multiple purposes: symmetric encryption provides efficient privacy protection for resource-constrained devices, while homomorphic encryption enables public verification and non-repudiation. This universal solution allows the same system to address both computational efficiency requirements and security verification requirements simultaneously.