An efficient identity‐based protocol for private matching

An important application of the Internet is that people can find partners satisfying their requirements from the huge number of users. In this paper, we present a cryptographic protocol for private matching, in which a user finds her desired partners without revealing her requirements, and the potential partners do not need to reveal their profiles. An additional advantage of our protocol is that it is identity-based, which means the involved parties do not need to have a priori knowledge of each other's public keys; as long as they know each other's identities, the protocol can be executed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.