Method of securely transferring programmable packet using digital signatures having access-controlled high-security verification key

Programmable networks represent a new approach to network architecture. It provides a much more flexible network infrastructure than traditional networks do. Flexibility is a powerful merit of programmable networks, but it can raise considerable security problems. Current programmable network researches have applied diverse techniques to solve them. Cryptographic technique is one way of protecting programmable networks. However it should not be applied conventionally, since programmable network paradigm is different from traditional one. It means that, at programmable network environments, programmable packets contain programmable codes should perform computations on intermediate-nodes as well as end-nodes. That is, since the packet sending-node does not know intermediate receiving-node, it cannot apply traditional cryptographic techniques can process each other only between end-nodes. This paper proposes a secure method for transferring programmable packets and performing computations using a transformed digital signature schemes with message recovery, at programmable network environment that intermediate packet receiving-nodes are not fixed. The proposed scheme uses transformed public key digital signature scheme that signing/verifying key pairs have almost same bit length and the verification-key storing server plays the role of key management server