Patent ID: 8559631

Claim:
A computerized method for decryption, comprising: receiving a ciphertext, the ciphertext having been encrypted using a first transformative operation on one or more public parameters and wherein the ciphertext is associated with an arbitrary number of attributes comprising an attribute set; receiving a private secret key, wherein the private secret key comprises one or more results of a second transformative operation on a master secret key and wherein the private secret key is associated with an access structure; if the attributes in the attribute set satisfy the access structure, decrypting the ciphertext using a number of pairing operations, wherein the number of pairing operations used to decrypt the ciphertext can be arbitrarily selected to be within a range between two and the number of attributes comprising the attribute set; and storing the decrypted ciphertext in a computerized data storage device; wherein a time required for decrypting the ciphertext using a number of pairing operations selected to be within a range between two and the number of attributes comprising the attribute set is less than the time required for decrypting the ciphertext using a number of pairing operations equal to the number of attributes associated with the ciphertext needed to satisfy the access structure.