{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T19:47:21Z","timestamp":1777578441524,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,5]],"date-time":"2020-12-05T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1607126400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004663","name":"Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["109-2410-H-167-014."],"award-info":[{"award-number":["109-2410-H-167-014."]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004663","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Due to the rapid development of physiological monitoring devices, internet of things (IoT) and communication technology, telecare medical information systems (TMIS) are getting more and more important in assisting doctors in completing medical work nowadays. Because of the open nature of wireless networks, a secure TMIS which offers authentication, anonymity and privacy features is required. There are many schemes protecting TMIS that have been proposed recently. Unfortunately, they cannot guarantee both patient\u2019s and doctor\u2019s privacy and security at the same time. This paper proposes a ring signature-based TMIS authentication scheme for a group consultation environment. In our proposed scheme, a patient can inquire about their symptoms without revealing their identity, and a doctor can also keep their own identity confidential when making a diagnosis. In view of the increasing number of serious patient\u2013physician disputes, our proposed scheme can have a practical application. Compared to other related work, our scheme achieves improved security properties and higher efficiency.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym12122009","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,10]],"date-time":"2020-12-10T20:18:22Z","timestamp":1607631502000},"page":"2009","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["A Ring Signature Based Anonymity Authentication Scheme for Group Medical Consultation"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"given":"Chia-Chen","family":"Lin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National of Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung 41170, Taiwan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7319-5780","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chin-Chen","family":"Chang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, Feng Chia University, Taichung 40724, Taiwan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yao-Zhu","family":"Zheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1529","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-010-9614-9","article-title":"A Secure Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems","volume":"36","author":"Wu","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1989","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-011-9658-5","article-title":"A More Secure Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems","volume":"36","author":"He","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3597","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-012-9835-1","article-title":"An Improved Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems","volume":"36","author":"Wei","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3833","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-012-9856-9","article-title":"An Efficient Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems","volume":"36","author":"Zhu","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2609","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-011-9735-9","article-title":"Strong Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems","volume":"36","author":"Pu","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3907","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-012-9862-y","article-title":"An Efficient and Secure Dynamic ID-based Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems","volume":"36","author":"Chen","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"305","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comcom.2010.02.011","article-title":"Cryptanalysis and Security Enhancement of a More Efficient & Secure Dynamic Id-based Remote User Authentication Scheme","volume":"34","author":"Khan","year":"2010","journal-title":"Comput. Commun."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9912","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-012-9912-5","article-title":"Improved Dynamic ID-based Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems","volume":"37","author":"Cao","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9911","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-012-9911-6","article-title":"Robust Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems","volume":"37","author":"Xie","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lin, H.Y. (2013). On the Security of a Dynamic ID-based Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems. J. Med. Syst.","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-013-9929-4"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9897","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-012-9897-0","article-title":"A Privacy Enhanced Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems","volume":"37","author":"Jiang","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"332","DOI":"10.1109\/TPDS.2013.145","article-title":"Certificateless Remote Anonymous Authentication Schemes for Wireless Body Sensor Networks","volume":"25","author":"Liu","year":"2014","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wu, F., and Xu, L. (2014). Security Analysis and Improvement of a Privacy Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems. J. Med. Syst.","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-013-9958-z"},{"key":"ref_14","first-page":"1","article-title":"An Improved Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems","volume":"38","author":"Wen","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-014-0077-2","article-title":"A Secure Chaotic Maps and Smart Cards Based Password Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme with User Anonymity for Telecare Medicine Information Systems","volume":"38","author":"Li","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-014-0027-z","article-title":"An Enhanced Biometric Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems with Nonce Using Chaotic Hash Function","volume":"38","author":"Das","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-014-0013-5","article-title":"An Efficient Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks Using Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem","volume":"38","author":"Zhao","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Giri, D., Maitra, T., Amin, R., and Srivastava, P.D. (2014). An Efficient and Robust RSA-Based Remote User Authentication for Telecare Medical Information Systems. J. Med. Syst., 38\u2013145.","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-014-0142-x"},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Arezou, O.-S., Dariush, A.-M., and Morteza, N. (2019). A Robust and Efficient ECC-based Mutual Authentication and Session Key Generation Scheme for Healthcare Applications. J. Med. Syst., 10\u201343.","DOI":"10.1007\/s10916-018-1120-5"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rivest, R.L., Shamir, A., and Tauman, Y. (2001). How to Leak a Secret. Advances in Cryptology: Asiacrypt\u201901, LNCS, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-45682-1_32"},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Abe, M., Ohkubo, M., and Suzuki, K. (2002). 1-Out-of-n Signatures from a Variety of Keys. Advances in Cryptology: Asiacrypt\u201902, LNCS, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-36178-2_26"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bresson, E., Stern, J., and Szydlo, M. (2002). Threshold Ring Signatures and Applications to Ad-hoc Groups. Advances in Cryptology: Crypto\u201902, LNCS, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-45708-9_30"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Boneh, D., Gentry, C., Lynn, B., and Shacham, H. (2003). Aggregate and Verifiably Encrypted Signatures from Bilinear Maps. Advances in Cryptology: Eurocrypt\u201903, LNCS, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-39200-9_26"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dodis, Y., Kiayias, A., Nicolosi, A., and Shoup, V. (2004). Anonymous Identification in Ad Hoc Groups. Advances in Cryptology: Erocrypt\u201904, LNCS, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-24676-3_36"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bender, A., Katz, J., and Morselli, R. (2006, January 4\u20137). Ring Signatures: Stronger Definitions, and Constructions without Random Oracles. Proceedings of the Third Theory of Cryptography Conference, New York, NY, USA.","DOI":"10.1007\/11681878_4"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chaum, D., and van Heyst, E. (1991). Group Signatures. Advances in Cryptology: Erocrypt\u201991, LNCS, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-46416-6_22"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bellare, M., Micciancio, D., and Warinschi, B. (2003, January 4\u20138). Foundations of Group Signatures: Formal Definitions, Simplified Requirements, and a Construction Based on General Assumptions. Proceedings of the International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, Warsaw, Poland.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-39200-9_38"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Camenisch, J., and Stadler, M. (1997, January 17\u201321). Efficient Group Signature Schemes for Large Groups (Extended Abstract). Proceedings of the Annual International Cryptology Conference, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1007\/BFb0052252"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"63","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ins.2014.12.019","article-title":"An Efficient Ring Signature Scheme from Pairings","volume":"300","author":"Shim","year":"2015","journal-title":"Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_30","unstructured":"Miller, V.S. (1985, January 18\u201322). Use of Elliptic Curves in Cryptography. Proceedings of the Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptographic Techniques, Santa Barbara, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"203","DOI":"10.1090\/S0025-5718-1987-0866109-5","article-title":"Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems","volume":"48","author":"Koblitz","year":"1987","journal-title":"Math. Comput."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gura, N., Patel, A., Wander, A., Eberle, H., and Shantz, S.C. (2004, January 11\u201313). Comparing Elliptic Curve Cryptography and RSA on 8-bit CPUs. Proceedings of the 6th Int. Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, LNCS, Cambridge, MA, USA.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-28632-5_9"},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hoffstein, J., Pipher, J., and Silverman, J.H. (2008). An Introduction to Mathematical Cryptography, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-0-387-77993-5_6"},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bos, J.W., Halderman, A., Heninger, N., Moore, J., Naehrig, M., and Wustrow, E. (2014, January 3\u20137). Elliptic Curve Cryptography in Practice. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, LNCS, Christ Church, Barbados.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-662-45472-5_11"},{"key":"ref_35","first-page":"212","article-title":"Digital Proxy Blind Signature Schemes based on DLP and ECDLP","volume":"21","author":"Tan","year":"2002","journal-title":"MM Res. Prepr."},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1892","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jss.2011.06.061","article-title":"A More Efficient and Secure ID based Remote Mutual Authentication with Key Agreement Scheme for Mobile Devices on Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem","volume":"84","author":"Islam","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. Syst. Softw."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1049\/iet-ifs.2012.0058","article-title":"A New Password Authentication and User Anonymity Scheme Based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography and Smart Card","volume":"7","author":"Li","year":"2013","journal-title":"IET Inf. Secur."},{"key":"ref_38","first-page":"1","article-title":"A Novel Authentication Scheme Using Self-certified Public Keys for Telecare Medical Information Systems","volume":"39","author":"Guo","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Med. Syst."}],"container-title":["Symmetry"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-8994\/12\/12\/2009\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T10:41:55Z","timestamp":1760179315000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-8994\/12\/12\/2009"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,5]]},"references-count":38,"journal-issue":{"issue":"12","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12]]}},"alternative-id":["sym12122009"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/sym12122009","relation":{},"ISSN":["2073-8994"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2073-8994","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,5]]}}}