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Additive Homomorphism

Definition

Additive homomorphism describes a cryptographic property where a function permits the addition of encrypted values without requiring their prior decryption. This means that if two plaintexts are added together and then encrypted, the result is equivalent to encrypting each plaintext separately and then performing an addition operation on their ciphertexts. This characteristic is vital for constructing privacy-preserving computation schemes, allowing secure data aggregation and analysis in sensitive applications like confidential blockchain transactions or secure voting protocols. The security relies on the mathematical structure maintaining this additive relationship while concealing the underlying data.