Scaling security in pairing-based protocols

In number theoretic cryptography there is always the problem of scaling-up security to a higher level. This usually means increasing the size of the modulus, from, say 1024 bits to 2048 bits. In pairing-based cryptography however another option is available, keeping the modulus constant and increasing instead the embedding degree. This has a big potential advantage in smart-card and embedded applications – security can be scaled up while continuing to use the same sized calculations. For example a cryptographic co-processor which does 512-bit modular multiplications can be directly re-used in the higher security setting. Here we investigate the scaling-up issue in the context of prime characteristic non-supersingular elliptic curves. We also confirm that under certain circumstances at higher levels of security a slightly modified Weil pairing may become more efficient than the Tate pairing.