Resilient and Verifiable Outsourced Attribute-Based Non-Interactive Oblivious Transfer Protocol for Tactical Edge Networks

Resilient and Verifiable Outsourced Attribute-Based Non-Interactive Oblivious Transfer Protocol for Tactical Edge Networks | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Resilient and Verifiable Outsourced Attribute-Based Non-Interactive Oblivious Transfer Protocol for Tactical Edge Networks Weiwei Liu, Binghao Fu, Lulin Wang This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8458068/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 03 Mar, 2026 Read the published version in Scientific Reports → Version 1 posted 13 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Tactical Edge Networks (TENs) serve as critical infrastructure for disseminating time-sensitive intelligence under resource-constrained and hostile conditions such as Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) and the Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT), where secure and efficient data sharing is a core requirement. To ensure security and privacy in such environments, strict adherence to the "need-to-know" principle is imperative, requiring that sensitive mission data are accessible only to entities with specific authorization attributes. Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) binds fine-grained access policies to ciphertexts and permits decryption only for attribute-satisfying users, rendering it inherently suitable for need-to-know control in these settings. However, the prohibitive computational overhead of bilinear pairings in CP-ABE is often impractical for lightweight frontline terminals in tactical edge networks. While outsourcing decryption to Tactical Cloud Nodes (TCNs) can alleviate this burden, it brings critical vulnerabilities in zero-trust deployments, including key exposure upon node capture, incorrect computation results, and the leakage of query intent to an honest-but-curious Command Center (CC). To address these issues, we present a novel resilient and verifiable outsourced attribute-based non-interactive oblivious transfer protocol. The proposed framework balances system efficiency with security and privacy, as well as addresses the inherent computational asymmetry between resource-constrained tactical edge devices and powerful cloud nodes. We integrate Non-Interactive Oblivious Transfer (NIOT) into an offline/online encryption pipeline to cryptographically conceal the user’s query index from the CC to prevent traffic analysis and maintain operational efficiency at the edge. In addition, we incorporate a user-held blinding factor into the transformation keys to decouple the outsourcing capability from final decryption to ensure resilience against TCN compromise. A novel lightweight hash-based verification mechanism is designed to guarantee the correctness of outsourced computations. Detailed security and efficiency analysis show that the proposed protocol achieves resilience and data confidentiality as well as other security objectives at a cost of constant online terminal overhead independent of access policy size, making it highly suitable for latency-sensitive tactical applications. Physical sciences/Engineering Physical sciences/Mathematics and computing Tactical Edge Networks Oblivious Transfer Outsourced Decryption Verifiable Computation User-Side Blinding Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 03 Mar, 2026 Read the published version in Scientific Reports → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 28 Jan, 2026 Reviews received at journal 23 Jan, 2026 Reviews received at journal 23 Jan, 2026 Reviews received at journal 21 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 19 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 19 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 19 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 19 Jan, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 19 Jan, 2026 Editor invited by journal 05 Jan, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 02 Jan, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 31 Dec, 2025 First submitted to journal 31 Dec, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8458068","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":577442459,"identity":"1b612b40-9901-400f-8d85-7f39265e6c9d","order_by":0,"name":"Weiwei Liu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Weiwei","middleName":"","lastName":"Liu","suffix":""},{"id":577442460,"identity":"83663296-599c-4fd0-869a-571775418e1a","order_by":1,"name":"Binghao 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